Can genetic engineering make wine even better?
Holding a glass of wine by its stem, careful not to warm the liquid with body heat, you raise it to the light above your head. The bright, clear liquid is the shade of pale straw, informing you of its youth and pure character.
You bring your nose to the rim of the glass and lower it in, inhaling deeply. Its aroma is inviting and fresh, full of fruit with strong notes of apple and citrus.
As you finish inhaling, you begin to sense the more subtle hints woven into the complex mixture like mango, rose petal and an undertone of lime zest. The first drink allows for the playful acidity to tease your palate, creating a medley of crisp blossom flavours and a mineral backbone that lingers to a finish.
This is the experience of a 2009 Heggies Eden Valley Riesling. This vintage won a gold medal at the Royal Queensland Wine Show in 2009. The Eden Valley is just one of Australia's 60 wine regions which supply the Australian people with table wines.
Creating the perfect wine experience is a huge industry in Australia.
Each Australian consumes 21.1 L of wine each year, on average. It is a $3.02 billion industry that employs 28,000 people.
Australia is fourth largest exporter of wines in the world and the 16th biggest wine drinking country. Due to its popularity as a household product, wine is the third most lucrative product to Australian agricultural exports behind meat and wheat.
But there is still a lot of uncertainty in the wine making process. Factors such as the amount of water available during the grape-growing season, the time the grapes are picked when ripening and the type of yeast used in the fermentation process can all affect the elusive qualities that winemakers try to draw out of the wines.
Researchers based at the Australian Wine Research Institute, the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre and the CSIRO are trying to reduce that uncertainty. One way is by sequencing the genomes of different yeasts and measuring their effects upon the developing characters in wine such as aroma and flavour.
"This research gives winemakers much more control over a process that is becoming increasingly challenging due to climate change and restricted availability of water," said Vladimir Jiranek, Associate Professor in Oenology at the University of Adelaide.
Researchers believe wine aroma is dependent on volatile molecules and that many of these molecules are either enhanced or suppressed by the type of yeast used in the fermentation process.
A wine fermentation can become stuck or sluggish resulting in a failed vintage or poor quality wine. However, robust yeast strains are less likely to lead to this problem because of their resilience to harsher conditions.
Social Responsibility
As a well known public forum I am asking you to exercise more social responsibility.
The sentences below literally have the potential to turn half of Australia into a bunch of winos. They are just too strong for the average person to resist…
“Holding a glass of wine by its stem, careful not to warm the liquid with body heat, you raise it to the light above your head. The bright, clear liquid is the shade of pale straw, informing you of its youth and pure character.
You bring your nose to the rim of the glass and lower it in, inhaling deeply. Its aroma is inviting and fresh, full of fruit with strong notes of apple and citrus.
As you finish inhaling, you begin to sense the more subtle hints woven into the complex mixture like mango, rose petal and an undertone of lime zest. The first drink allows for the playful acidity to tease your palate, creating a medley of crisp blossom flavours and a mineral backbone that lingers to a finish.”
wa dja say maaate.
Hick
The average Aussie
Enough said!