Alcohol-removing technology to help remedy smoke-tainted wine

Rising global temperatures increase the risk of smoke from bushfires damaging grapes, which can lead to a ‘smoke taint’ with the finished wine. New research has now found the technology that removes alcohol from wine can be combined with traditional remediation techniques to mitigate smoke taint, minimising its impact on wine’s sensory elements.

Spinning cone column (SCC) distillation is a technology used for dealcoholisation when creating no- and low-alcohol wine products.

Adelaide University research has found that when combined with the use of activated carbon — a method traditionally used to remove impurities from wine — SCC distillation achieved a better overall outcome compared to the use of activated carbon alone.

“As a commodity of international importance, global wine production was valued at US$333 billion in 2023 and is estimated to reach US$379 billion by 2029,” said Professor Kerry Wilkinson, from Adelaide University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.

“Maintaining this value requires urgent solutions to manage the impacts of global climate change on grape and wine production, including smoke taint.

“Adelaide University PhD student Ysadora Mirabelli-Montan’s research has shown that this combined treatment method remediated the impacts of smoke taint in wines while preserving desirable fruity characters in the end product.”

SCC distillation works by using steam and centrifugal force to separate ethanol and aroma volatiles into a condensate, leaving behind stripped wine comprising the remaining elements — water, acids, sugars, colour and tannins.

“When a smoke-affected wine is processed in this way, most of the compounds associated with smoke taint remain in the stripped wine,” said Wilkinson, whose study was published in the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research.

“We can then be more targeted, only applying activated carbon to the stripped wine without also stripping out desirable aroma compounds.”

The condensate and treated stripped wine are then recombined, and the resulting wine had improved fruit expression and less obvious smoke characters.

“While small but significant changes in alcohol concentrations were observed following treatment, this didn’t impact the sensory perception of the wines,” Wilkinson said.

The trial found the treatment caused a significant decrease in sulfur dioxide — a product stabiliser — but this can be easily remedied post-treatment.

Wilkinson said future trials at commercial scale could validate the findings of this small-scale trial.

“We treated around 100 litres using our pilot-scale SCC distillation system, but the commercial-scale systems used for dealcoholisation in industry can treat much larger volumes,” she said.

Image credit: iStock.com/Edsel Querini