Smoke Taint Removal Via Reverse Osmosis

Start of Smoke Taint In June and July ,817 acres were destroyed throughout Mendocino County. Fire burned for weeks without containment. Dense smoke & poor visibility throughout Mendocino, Lake and Northern Sonoma Counties, including some areas of Napa County

Management Options Unfortunately…… very little information is available Some or lots of anecdotal information is available Customer did various trials with other vendors and chose Winesecrets based on Service and Experience British Columbia Fire in 2003

Customer Case Study Customer experimented with press fractions and Processed all affected white grapes with the following regime White Wine Free Run - free of smoke taint: –135 Gallons / Ton –Resulting in large amount of press wine to be processed

Red wine Obviously More Difficult Eliminating Skin Contact Not an Option Containment –Separating press fractions and delay blending Keep known smoke free lots separate Wait post ML to evaluate for treatment

Dealing with press fractions Ultra filtration of press wine: Experimented with 10k (MWCO) 10k: Removed color and harsh phenolics retained varietal character Created neutral but very useable wine Press fraction ready for RO treatment Up to 2 passes or less!!!

Ultra Filtration for Press Fractions

Molecular Wight cut-off range Crossflow Clarification200, ,000 Ultrafiltration 1, ,000 Tannin & Browning 10, ,000 Protein Removal 10, ,000 Decolorization 1, ,000 Nanofiltration *** ,000 Loose Reverse Osmosis Reverse Osmosis *** Not allowed by TTB

Low Pressure Reverse Osmosis Membrane

Red Wine RO Treatment Wine should be clean < 50 NTU – XF Filtration? Processed prior to barrel aging Red vs. White ……It’s a slower Process!! –Most challenging lots were red wines –Worst case: 10 passes on RO Tasted at least daily/more on smaller lots –Treated enough to remove taint –Didn’t over treat, risk stripping wine

Empowering the Customer Our pride & specialty ! After the initial Start –up face and completion of UF work we trained our customer to run our equipment. This lead to reduced cost per Gallon and more freedom in scheduling Winesecrets trained cellar staff and managed integration of the technology into cellar production

Challenges when tasting your wines Smoke characteristics carry over to next sample Difficult to distinguish sample to sample – need a break Slow to pick up “Post Nasal” - ST can show up 30 sec – 1 min. after tasting Use a good control – 2006/07 Taste in the morning…. If you can

Wine Analysis

Permeate / Carbon Filter Blind Tasting

Wine Samples (tasting) DNV Wine 1 Guaiacol13 ug/L AFT Guaiacol10 ug/L DWB Wine 2 Guaiacol12 ug/L AFT Guaiacol 3 ug/L

Final conclusion regarding Smoke and Mirrors Since 2003 we have treated so far over 1.5 Mil gallons of wine Smoke taint removal works just fine No re-occurrence…. Not on processed wine or in the vineyards All vendors use RO based membrane technology Pressure vary from 250psi to 600/700psi – depending on wine Filter media is the key difference next to customer Service (wrong media = negative effects/stripping)