The nose is like butter, the complex finish rich and round like an intimate embrace.
A perfect glass of wine, n’est ce pas?
You don’t have to be a devoted oenophile to appreciate that the centuries-old tradition of winemaking has always reflected an agreeable marriage of science and art.
But times are changing. And while the art of winemaking remains timeless, the real cinder blocks of wine science — improving the yeasts, fermentation and bacterial processes — are being developed at the laboratory bench.
Canadian researchers are working to improve the quality and safety of wines, and this country is among the top three, including the United States and South Africa, in developing wine genetics.
Wine genetics?
Does that mean we’ll soon be swilling transgenic Frankenwine, or wine grapes or yeasts “modified” by the genes of other plants or even animals?
Such a prospect is still more science fiction than science, say researchers. GM wines are still many years away from the wine shops, says Professor Hennie van Vuuren, director of the B.C. Wine Research Centre at the University of British Columbia.
“I don’t think any genetically engineered wine is on the market yet,” says van Vuuren, who recently addressed a Calgary conference on The New Wine Genetics. “Several yeasts have been created, but they have not been used in commercial processes.”
Natural biotechnology has been a tool of oenology and viticulture since the first sun-kissed grape was pulverized into sweet juice, and yeast — the micro-organisms that produce the enzymes which convert sugar to alcohol — was added to promote fermentation.
Van Vuuren notes that researchers are probing alternatives to the traditional bacterial malic acid fermentation process, which among other things, can result in the spoilage of wines and the production of elements that promote headaches.
“Before these yeasts will be used, if they are used, one will have to go through all of the approval processes,” he says. “Naturally, the public will be one of the participants in such a debate to give that consent before it is used.”
Genetic engineering is also spreading to viticulture. The first transgenic grape vine to be grown in the world, using a gene from a wild broccoli plant to build resistance to frost, was planted in 1997 at the Chateau des Charmes vineyard in southern Ontario’s Niagara region.
Understanding and manipulating vines and yeasts at the molecular level may also help researchers find the tools to fend off industry-threatening diseases including Pierce’s Disease, an insect-spread bacterium which threatens California’s $2.8-billion US wine, table and raisin grape industry.
“This disease is threatening the whole wine industry now. And I think if the only solution to prevent this disease is by using a genetically engineered plant. It’s going to happen,” says van Vuuren.
The public will ultimately be the final judge on the issue of genetically engineered wine yeasts and vines, says a Calgary wine merchant. Richard Harvey believes more education is needed before any judgements are made on the new wine genetics.
“I still have a reticence, personally, towards GM production techniques and GM foods especially,” says Harvey, a wine educator and co-owner of MetroVino on 11th Avenue. “I’m dubious whether this kind of gene-splicing is as innocuous as it’s made to be.”
Standard classic crossings of strains of yeast and vines have been practised for years to reach the same goals without using genetic material from other plants or animals, he adds. “We have seen the crossing of vine species and interspecies to create new vines, but that’s going back to (Gregor) Mendel and his peapods. It’s nothing frightening, and it’s the same with yeasts.”
He points to the Phylloxera louse epidemic which ravaged the vineyards of Europe from the 1860s to early part of the last century. It was eventually combatted by the grafting of a resistant American root stock onto the European vine, allowing the plant to still produce European grapes.
Van Vuuren stresses that improving the wine remains the main goal of researchers in the exciting and controversial field of wine genetics.
For the time being, science — not science fiction — will dictate how far the research can go.
Predicts van Vuuren: “I believe that genetically engineered grapes or wine yeasts will eventually be used, specifically to produce safer wines of a higher quality.”
