Winemaking conference Technical topics and tastings. The second Wines of Great Britain (WineGB) Winemaking Conference took place on 29 November 2021 at Denbies Wine Estate, Surrey, and was organised by the WineGB winemaking working group. The one-day conference was well attended by winemakers, winemaking students, and WineGB members with an interest in wine production, for a full day of technical presentations and wine tastings from a range of expert speakers with experience from across the industry. There was also time to visit the WineGB patrons who were exhibiting and supporting the conference, and network industry peers and friends. With the welcoming speech from Simon Thorpe MW, the key topics tackled included protein and tartrate stability, producing wine
> Simon Thorpe MW, WineGB CEO presented a tasting with a comparison of UK blanc de blancs and still white wines from the UK
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in a changing climate, sustainability auditing in the sector, and FTIR analysis and wet chemistry. Being a winemaking conference, tutored tastings took place including a range of Piwi wines, a comparison of UK blanc de blancs and still white wines from the UK, as well as the new and innovative canned wines.
Protein and tartrate stability
Sarah Midgley, from Plumpton College, focussed on recognising protein and tartrate instabilities and providing solutions to prevent these occurring. For tartrates this included the pros and cons of chilling, the contact process, electrodialysis and ion exchange. Sarah finished with a process and timeline to stabilise bulk wine.
> Jennifer Lincoln
Jennifer Lincoln from Enartis, a company providing oenological products and technical support, focussed on calcium tartrate instability, which she explained is a marginal problem, but a growing issue in many wine regions. She explained that this is likely linked to increasing calcium content in grapes, and soils. The calcium tartrates can be responsible for ‘gushing’ in sparkling wines, and cold stabilising has little effect, she explained and discussed the Enartis predictive test, before speaking about Zenith, a product for potassium tartrate stabilisation. Geoff Taylor, former wine chemist and industry consultant, concluded the session emphasising the importance of understanding the concept of stability and the many influences that can cause << changes to a wine’s complex chemistry,
> Duncan McNeill
