Improving Wine Quality Through Sanitation

(Wines&Vines) - We’ve probably all had the experience, either in our own wineries during crush or when visiting other people’s premises: The stickiness of grape juice and must on floors, railings and a general sense of the winery being closer to an actual workshop than something in Architectural Digest or the glossy tourist brochures.

But if there’s stickiness, there’s sugar; and where there’s sugar, there’s food for bacteria, flies and a vinegary atmosphere. And vinegar isn’t something most of us want associated with wine.

“My first line of defense is always sight, smell and touch. If it feels slimy, if it smells bad and it looks bad, then chances are it is bad,” said Gordon Taylor of Daven Lore Winery in Prosser, Wash., during a presentation to winemakers at last week’s conference of the British Columbia Wine Grape Council.

During a half-hour presentation about how to keep things “clean and mean” in wineries, Taylor laid down the law: “There’s no reason for it, you just have to keep those things at bay,” he said. “It’s nothing different than good management practices.”