FIET
Destemming the Sauvignon Blanc grapes by hand
FIET Project 9: The use of Pulsed Electric Fields technology for the NZ winemaking industry Sze Ying Leong, Phil Bremer, Patrick Silcock and Indrawati Oey (University of Otago) We first reported the Pulsed Electric Fields FIET Project update in the Aug/Sep 2018 issue. Here is an update specifically on the wine project.
Introduction In winemaking, Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) technology is applied to the grapes upon entering the winery or after destemming and prior to maceration/fermentation. PEF technology is effective in disrupting vacoules and increasing the permeability of the cell membrane, which 22
Food New Zealand
helps to increase the total amount of compounds extracted from grape skins (e.g. pigments, bioactives, volatile precursors, primary metabolites and phenolics) and shorten the time to achieve the desired colour and flavour during maceration. In addition to PEF-assisted extraction, this technology also gives the winemaker the ability to tailor the sensory properties of the wine by modulating phenol and tannin release, react to biological or seasonal variation, and increase varietal expression. Therefore optimising PEF processing conditions for each grape variety is crucial to achieve the targeted sensory properties for that particular wine.
