SMOKE TAINT REMOVALPurfresh Wine’s patented ozone (O3) technology helps vineyards overcome the problems caused by wildfire smoke by treating grapes pre-crush to remediate the smoke. Wildfires are raging nearly everywhere in the world where wine is a major industry. Purfresh Wine is coming to the rescue of these vineyards.
Process
Smoke-affected grapes are placed in a sealed, self-powered, and temperature-controlled container and treated with O3 for 24 hours. After treatment is complete, O3 breaks down into oxygen (O2), so there is no residue left over and no chemicals applied to the grapes.
O3 breaks down smoke taint molecules. The third oxygen atom in O3 pairs with carbon, which turns smoke taint molecules into acids. These acids generally dissipate during fermentation.
The major degradation product of guaiacol reacting with ozone is monomethyl muconate.
Monomethyl muconate finally degrades to fumaraldehydic acid, methyl glyoxylate, glycolic acid, and methyl-4-oxobut-2-enoate.
All of these compounds are acids, so it could be expected that these may slightly acidify or completely decompose in fermentation if they have not previously reacted with sugars.
Results
“Ozone has traditionally been used to mediate and remove smoke aromas and smoke smells in buildings, for instance, that have been subject to fire. Ozone being a very strong oxidizing agent is presumably having the same effect, and destroying those molecules on the surfaces of the grape.” -Winemaker Ken Bernards, Porter Family Vineyards, Napa, CA, 6/1/21
Data Analysis performed by Tastry: Consumer Performance
Percentage of consumers with palate match above 85%
Yellow Circle (Treated):
28.96% of consumers
Salmon Circle (Untrated)::
5.01%
Your wines are 5x more likely to be preferred in the top 15 wines of any given consumer when treated by Purfresh Wine.
Literature:
Written in the 2021 published Molecules wine research white paper by: Margherita Modesti, Colleen Szeto, Renata Ristic,
WenWen Jiang, Julie Culbert, Keren Bindon, Cesare Catelli, Fabio Mencarelli, Pietro Tonutti, and Kerry Wilkinson.
Original Published Full Article: https://www.mdpi.com/1420-
Graphic representing the flavor profiles of treated vs non-treated wines in smoke-affected wines. Smoke tainted grapes treated at 1 part per million (red line) were able to return to their original flavor profile.
Justified ROI
Each day of O3 treatments on 22 tons of smoke-tainted grapes saves wineries over $80,000, and a full month of treatments could mitigate a $1.5 million loss.