The latest from Wine Grenade

Brett O’Riley Joins Wine Grenade Board

1/29/2018

Auckland, 24 January 2018 - Wine Grenade, the wine maturation start-up, has recruited technology executive Brett O’Riley to its Board. The appointment of Brett, who also becomes Chairperson, strengthens Wine Grenade’s commercialization capabilities as the company expands into new wine growing territories and leverages data captured during maturation.

Brett has extensive experience in IT, innovation strategy and international business development. Most recently CEO of Auckland’s economic growth agency ATEED for five years, Brett was previously Deputy Chief Executive, Business Innovation and Investments for the Ministry of Science + Innovation, and founding CEO of the NZICT Group (now called NZ Tech) which represents New Zealand’s leading technology companies. He is an experienced technology company director and has also held senior roles during 14 years with companies within the Telecom group (now Spark) including Southern Cross Cable Network.

Brett’s current governance roles include directorships at drone noise cancellation start-up Dotterel Technologies, New Zealand Film Commission, Baseball NZ and Bowls NZ. Brett also works in an advisory capacity to a number of companies including Innovation Capital. A dedicated advocate for technology in education, Brett is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of Manaiakalani Education Trust.

“In order to exploit IoT opportunities in the global wine industry, we need to bring in additional skills, experience and networks. We are fortunate to have Brett’s contribution and knowledge to accelerate our growth at a time when Wine Grenade is rapidly expanding and raising capital to do so, says Hamish Elmslie, CEO.

Wine Grenade commercializes IP from New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research in a connected device which allows winemakers to cost effectively replicate the traditional oak barrel ageing process by delivering precise amounts of oxygen through a permeable membrane - a process known as micro-oxygenation.

The company is also exploring opportunities to capitalise on the unique location of its sensors inside the wine tanks and has just completed Vodafone Xone, a six-month long accelerator for data and IoT start- ups.

“Wine Grenade is leveraging New Zealand’s strengths in horticulture IP and high-tech manufacturing to target an identifiable high value market opportunity. I’m thrilled to be working alongside Hamish, the other founders, and the existing investor group, to make the most of this opportunity,” says Brett.

Founded in 2014, the company is now selling devices to wine makers in eight countries and is building out its distributor network, appointing its first resellers in Chile and Argentina late last year.

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Charting Wine Grenade’s Progress at Unified

12/21/2017

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For the past 10 years, I have been going to what most of us call “Unified”. Built with the joint input of growers, vintners and allied industry members, the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium is held annually in Sacramento, California and is the largest event of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. Over 650 suppliers display their products and services to approximately 14,000 people who attend annually.

Among those thousands of people shaking hands, one of the biggest subjects will certainly be “the fires”: Were you impacted? How much had you harvested when the fires happened? Did you suffer smoke taint? How did you deal with it? Etc. Indeed, one of the conference sessions is titled: “Wildfires and Wine: Loss Prevention, Mitigation and Management”.

Aside from the fires, whether it be on the viticultural, winemaking or retail side, each visitor will be looking for ideas and products, innovations and technical breakthroughs - new ways of doing better and more efficiently their craft.

For the 4th consecutive year, the managers of Wine Grenade will be there too.

The first year in 2015, they just walked the floor with a brochure and an idea at the R&D stage.
The second year, they were there, still walking the floor, but now with a prototype in hand and looking for one of those daring first-time-adopters to prove the concept.
The third year, they were sharing a booth with a finished product which had been proven in a Napa winery on 2 wines and their first paying customer.
And come January 2018, the team will again be on a booth showing their latest version of the Wine Grenade micro-ox, backed with a track record of more than 20 units actively “micro-bubbling” in the US, and 65 more around the world, including in France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada…. And even Belgium!

If you want to know more about Wine Grenade’s disruptive technology which is democratising micro-oxygenation techniques, please get in touch with Hamish Elmslie at hamish@winegrenade.com and swing by the booth!

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Where do you stand on wine technology and innovation?

9/28/2017

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This piece originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of Wine Business Monthly

Cyril Derreumaux

Winemakers constantly debate the balance between art and technology. This is more than just the difference between Old World and New World wine production - it’s a fundamental question that every winery needs to address.

I remember visiting local wine fairs in France with my dad, tasting and buying wine by the case. He explained to me the concepts of “terroir” and “millesime”; how each plot of land could produce a distinct wine because of the ground composition, and how each year’s climate made a wine taste different. We would store those cases in our underground cellar and drink them as time passed, which might be weeks, months, or even years. I accepted it as fact that the same wine could taste better some years than others.

To my surprise when moving to the USA, I discovered an entirely different reality. In the ‘New World’, in wine like many consumer products, ‘brand’ is at the forefront, and consumers expect a consistent tasting experience year after year, and in any location. Someone drinking a Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay from 2010 would demand the same taste in 2016, regardless of the weather or the origins of the grapes. The majority of the consumer’s perspective in the USA is very straightforward: “I buy it, I taste it, I like it, I buy it again, I like it, I buy it again....” Most consumers drink these wines within hours or days of purchase, so they count on a predictable flavor.

And winemakers rely on various techniques to control the variables and meet this consumer demand for consistency of quality. It is undeniable that technology has an important part to play in today’s business of winemaking. Throughout the winemaking process, many decisions are made, which each require some risk or innovation.

In the vineyard, do we harvest our own grapes to control quality or source them from different regions in order to work with different profiles?

During fermentation what strains of yeasts, bacteria and enzymes do we use, or how much adjustment to pH and alcohol is advisable? How about decisions regarding saignee, skin contact, pump-overs, micro-oxygenation?

During blending, should different varietals be mixed from within the winery estate or from wines purchased on the bulk market?

During aging, use oak barrels with various toast profiles and origines, or replicate the maturation process with oak alternatives and using micro-oxygenation. How about de-alcoholization?

The appetite for technology adoption in any given winery reflects, at the macro level, that country’s culture and its (old vs new world) approach by producers and consumers. On the micro level, the willingness to innovate reflects the brand and culture of each individual winery. Some wineries trade on being cutting edge and challenging the status quo, while others position themselves as artisanal brands and offer a consumer experience to match this.

There is no right or wrong answer - each winery has to understand its own brand positioning and product strategy. My many years on the road working with wineries of all sizes showed me that these choices reflect the winery’s organizational structure, employee profile and team culture (personality, values and internal hierarchy), investment in winemaking tools, website content, the color of the label, the weight of the bottle, the use of a specific closure, etc.

In the end, the challenge for winemakers, and wineries as a whole, is to remain true to their vision without missing opportunities to innovate. I believe no winery can afford to remain fully artisanal; if the taste profile can vary from year to year, the overall quality of the wine has to remain constant in order to maintain success in a market where the spots on the shelves are highly prized. Some wineries remain partially artisanal in the winemaking process and message but offer a sophisticated customer experience supported by technology, like an online wine club and social media communications.

Whether organizations decide to embrace or resist change, the fact is that the democratization of technology is happening in front of us. When my kids’ PlayStation has more computing power than the early moon launches, we are only a couple of years away from talking to our fridge and having it tell us what to cook - or having our winemaking tank talking to us ...

The point is that democratized technology is cheaper and more accessible for a business of any size. Winery owners, winemakers and wine marketers must now decide their positioning on technology and innovation.

Where do you stand...:

on oxygen inhibition vs. hyper-oxygenation of white musts vs. managed oxygenation: White wines are usually made from the rapid crushing and pressing of the grapes in order to extract juice with a low level of phenolic compounds. Oxidative reactions are generally faster in must than in wine and could lead to alteration of aroma precursors so some winemakers will prefer a total and radical protection of the must from oxygen. Oxygen contact can create chain reactions that would produce unwanted colors and precipitation later in the wine. Extended skin contact as well as grinding and shredding of the solid parts of grape bunches during processing allows a greater extraction of phenolic compounds into the juice. The higher concentration of phenolic compounds can lead to significant instability, and lower the quality. Thus, hyperoxygenation at the must stage is a different approach that aims at removing the phenolic compounds before fermentation in order to produce a more stable wine. Managed oxygenation is another option, which aims at adding the right amount of oxygen in order to oxidize these polyphenol but preserving the aroma precursors that will be revealed later in actual aromas in the wine.

on traditional cold settling vs. centrifuge vs. flotation: There are several ways for settling grapes juice prior to fermentation. The first clarification is usually carried out by sedimentation where the wine is cooled down and left for the solids to settle out, after which the wine is racked off the solid lees by pumping or gravity. In a centrifuge, the sedimentation due to gravity is replaced by the centrifugal force generated by the spin of the centrifuge. Centrifuges can work at very high speeds (often up to 10,000 rpm) and have very high flow-rate. Flotation is also a rapid process of juice clarification: Carbon dioxide or nitrogen gas and fining agents such as gelatine, bentonite and silica sol are injected into the must under pressure, and then the pressure is released. The gas comes out of solution and adheres to the solid particles, thus making them rise to the top of the vessel. These solid particles can then be removed physically or decanted from the juice and passed through a press filter.

on classic maceration on skins vs. thermo-vinification vs. flash detente: Classic maceration is achieved at low temperatures of 75-90°F requiring extended contact between the juice and grape skins. The fermentation process, while producing alcohol (and CO2 as a byproduct), also extracts the polyphenols from the skin. Further color and flavors are extracted from the skins by mixing the skins back into the juice by one of many processes (punch down, pump over, rack and return, etc). Thermo-vinification uses heat to extract color and flavors from the skins. The crushed grapes are heated to 140-167°F for 20 to 30 minutes. The must is then cooled down to fermentation temperature but this process gives intensely colored must because the heat weakens the cell walls of the grape skins enabling the anthocyanins to be easily extracted. Flash Détente is essentially an evolution of the thermo-vinification method, by involving a combination of heating the grapes to about 180°F and then sending them into a huge vacuum chamber where the grape skins burst and are cooled.

on fermentation in stainless tanks vs. wooden tanks vs. egg-shaped cement tanks vs. clay amphorae: Fermentation tanks may be made of wood, concrete, glass fibre, clay or stainless steel. Stainless steel is generally preferred as it is easier to clean and its conductivity makes temperature control easier, but winemakers have available a multitude of options. They will chose one or another vessel depending on tradition, grape variety, wine style,... and personal philosophy.

on stainless steel tank aging with micro-ox & oak alternatives vs. oak barrels: “Élevage” is the french word which is defined as the progression of wine between fermentation and bottling. Comparable to the term "raising" in English, think of élevage as a wine's adolescence or education”. Barrel aging is essentially an “automatic” aging device as it balances naturally all the five parameters in the aging process: 1. Oxygen, 2. Oak compounds, 3. Turbidity (contact with the lees), 4. Temperature and 5. Time. The commercial reality is that not all wine can be matured the traditional way in oak barrels; about 90% of wine is matured in steel tanks. Oak alternatives aim at reproducing the oak profile, while micro-oxygenation was developed to reproduce the “oxygen intake”. The micro-ox technology is built on the premise that a tank can “behave” just like a barrel if we are authentic about how we recreate the important processes that happen in oak maturation.

on traditional cold stabilization vs. electrodialysis vs. CMC: Consumer resistance to the occurrence of potassium bitartrate (tartrate) crystals in wine has compelled wineries to stabilise wine against the possible settling of such crystals. Cold stabilization is called as such because it is the act of cooling the wine that causes tartaric acid and potassium to form tartrate crystals (Cream of Tartar). The chilling of wine to a temperature approximating the freezing point of wine is an effective means of cold stabilising wines before bottling, provided the low temperature is maintained for a sufficiently long period of time. Developed by European researchers, Electrodialysis is an energy-efficient and faster alternative to cold stabilization. The precipitation of the crystals is prevented by concentrating the precursors of the settling reaction to such a level that the settling will no longer take place. This is achieved by pumping the wine between two membranes with a weak electrical charge on either side. The wine passes through an electrical field until desired conductivity levels are reached. CMC (Carboxymethyl Cellulose) is another solution to cold stabilize white and rose wines: CMC is added to wine immediately after polish filtration, and the wine is stable and ready for bottling in 48 hours, providing a rapid, inexpensive, and organoleptically neutral alternative for cold stability.

on latest filtration technologies vs. no filtration: Filtering or not filtering a wine remains a stylistic choice of the winemaker. Essentially, filtering will impact the visual appeal but will also helps ensure the wine remains stable after bottling. Some winemakers believe too much filtering can strip a wine’s flavors and aromas, and unfiltered wines can have a more appealing texture and mouthfeel. Since filtering simply means passing the wine through a media in order to remove the suspended particles, the size of the particles to be removed will determine which of the filtration systems the winemaker will use (membrane filtration, depth filtration, crossflow, etc).

on selling... through distributors vs. DTC online vs. tasting room vs. wine club vs. building an app.: Individual state laws require wineries to sell their wine in the US through distributors. It’s the famous “three-tier system” composed of producers, distributors and retailers. The basic structure of the system is that producers can sell their products only to wholesale distributors who then sell to retailers (through a network of sales reps out into the market), and only retailers (and restaurants) may sell to consumers. If your goal is to become a national brand, you will certainly have to go through these traditional selling channels. This being said, tasting room and wine club sales remain the most reliable and profitable channels for many wineries. Virtually every winery has a tasting room (or two) and a wine club now. How about building your own videos on the various social media platforms or creating your own app?

To make an informed choice on technology, winemakers need to:

Search for the new ideas and solutions on display at trade-shows and fairs.
Read the research papers from suppliers, wineries and universities.
Ask other winemakers willing to share their own experiences with industry colleagues.
Question distributors and suppliers who know what they sell, spend huge budgets on R&D and wish to answer your needs.
Be online and connected. New ideas pop up everywhere and on all medias we consume.
Travel and find the industry leaders in overseas markets - visit trade shows and wineries.
Try, be curious and dedicate some of your time for in-house trials, but also take part in consolidated trials within the industry.

The point for wineries to note is that their options to apply technology to a range of uses - both winemaking and general business - have really opened up in a short amount of time, all participants should be aware of this, and should decide where they stand.

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Let's talk about wine maturation

8/10/2017

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By Cyril Derreumaux

Recent install at a large winery in New Zealand

A winemaker’s job is to make good wine, consistently, year after year. Easier said than done, right? This being said, any winemaker will tell you that it is also about making decisions for the short, medium and long term, but also in resolving unexpected problems, especially during harvest. ;)

This month’s blog covers the various choices available to winemakers regarding wine aging tools and strategies, in order to maximize efficiency and minimize problem solving.

How can the winemaker decide between these choices in order to make the best wine possible with a given budget and target retail price? Regarding the maturation phase, he might decide to go traditional and do 100% barrel aging. Or a mix of barrels and stainless-steel tank with oak alternatives and mox, or oxygen permeable plastic polymer tank with oak staves. The decision will be based on several factors and criteria: the financial priorities of the wineries, brand positioning, sourcing of the grapes, time to market, etc…

Any conversation regarding oxygen delivery systems involved in wine aging cannot be a simple comparison of coopers against coopers, micro-oxygenation suppliers against each other, or a binary opposition between barrels and micro-ox. The conversation should include ALL means of delivering oxygen while maturing wine: barrels, including large wooden vessels/tanks, micro-ox delivery units, permeable tanks made of complex polymers, and even a the basic oxygen tank cylinder with a manual valve, a hose and a sparging stone…

To give you a hand, below are some tips on how to segment wine maturation solutions in order to decide which best suits your needs:

Passive vs Active: Do you prefer a “passive” oxygen intake in your wine, or “active” where you can chose the doses of oxygen and the rates and time of delivery? That would be the difference between a permeable vessel (oak or plastic polymer) and a micro-ox device.
Multi-purpose vs Single purpose: Do you have several needs to fulfill with your investment, or a single purpose? For instance, barrels and tanks are also containers and help with storage capacity, while micro-ox devices only serve the purpose of delivery oxygen at a precise rate.
Traditional vs innovative: Where do you sit on the scale of innovation? Are traditional winemaking methods critical to your brand or are you curious about more innovative and modern winemaking alternatives?
Short term vs Long term: How much time do you have for aging - a few months or a couple of years?
Risky vs No Risk: How much risk are you willing to take on in your winemaking process? Are you comfortable with a little more risk in order to harvest better results?
Low mobility or fixed unit vs Portable: Do you need the unit to be able to be moved from tank to tank, from winery to winery, or have the aging units fixed and sedentary?
Violent oxygenation vs Managed oxygenation: Do you want a tool that allows you to run only managed oxygenation (when the wine’s capacity to consume the oxygen is higher than the oxygen diffused), or also punctual violent oxygenation (during fermentation or before bottling for instance)?
Phase 1 or Phase 2: Do you want a tool that allows you work during fermentation on the structuring phase (between AF and MLF), or the harmonization phase (after MLF), or all of the above?
Add vs modify vs prevent: Do you want to add to or change your wine’s characteristics (link tannins to anthocyanins, soften tannins, prevent reduction), or all of the above?
Sparging stone vs diffusor vs wood vs permeable plastic tank vs semi-permeable membrane: Do you care about the amount or size of the bubbles of oxygen of the delivery systems? What is the best suited for your wine’s needs?
What is your winery setup? Is wifi available so that you can benefit from capturing and analysing data or is this not practical for your winery?
Last but not least: How much time does the winemaker have to manage oxygen intake during wine aging? Are you a single hand work force in the winery and have little time to do this or you have assistant winemakers and cellar workers to help you at all time?

Many different factors will impact a winemaker’s decision to invest in new equipment for their winery. Obviously, the benefits of any investment need to outweigh the costs.

At Wine Grenade we’ve built our business around allowing the winemaker to achieve all of the following:

Improving significantly the wine’s quality in order to command a higher retail price
Allowing wineries to keep the same retail price for the consumer, but improving the quality of the wine to achieve a better value for money product
Increasing the efficiency of the winery, for example reducing the amount of time and effort required to install and manage the unit
Reducing costs versus existing systems, for example reducing storage costs

To summarize, here is how the Wine Grenade is positioned along those parameters mentioned above:

Active micro-ox system
Single purpose (dedicated only to deliver oxygen during aging)
Innovative, the combination of wifi connectivity and membrane diffusion solves some issues with existing micro-ox systems
Flexible for short or long-term maturation, no risk involved
Fully portable unit, simple to move tanks
Managed oxygenation
Best used during phase 2 (harmonization phase)
Both “modify and prevent”
Uses a semi-permeable membrane diffusion system,
Wifi enabled to capture data and allow remote control of the unit
And... last but not least: little required dedication time for the winemaker.

We love talking about this stuff, so get in touch, and we'll see if Wine Grenade can help improve your winemaking operation.

Cyril Derreumaux - cyril@winegrenade.com

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Hola Chile y Argentina

5/29/2017

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Wine Grenade’s versatile and highly portable technology can be used on wines from around the globe, so it didn’t take much time for our team to start working on adding South America to our distribution network.

So in May, Cyril packed up his bags and headed South from his California base to meet distributors in Argentina and Chile, the ninth and seventh largest winemaking producing countries in the world respectively.

Home of many red varieties, and in particular their signature varietals that are Malbec for Argentina and Carmenere for Chile, the two markets share many similarities but are also remarkably different.

Argentina has an international reputation for great quality wine produced at large scale however has suffered massively in tumultuous economic times. However, as Forbes reports, there are strong signs Argentina is ready is ready for a comeback to the international stage. A new government has removed the import/export tariffs that crippled the trade economy for the last five years, and winemakers are beginning to look externally again rather than focus on the domestic market.

Cyril lived for over a year in Mendoza and capitalised on his industry contacts to meet potential distributors. He also presented Wine Grenade directly to local winemakers, receiving positive feedback.

Chile has steadily emerged as a global wine force. Considered as “new world” as its neighbour Argentina, Chile’s favourable growing conditions and now stable economic climate has enabled it to become the 4th largest exporter of wine into the United States (after France, Italy and Australia). With a length of over 4,000 km from North to South, Chile offers a broad spectrum of wine varietals. Names such as the valleys of Casablanca, Maipo, Colchagua and Curico might all sound familiar, and if not - try them!
The South American exploration builds on our experience creating distributor partnerships in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Our expansion strategy is based on gaining scale through trusted local partners and as a business we are building knowledge about how to create sustainable, profitable partnerships.

Overall, the trip was highly efficient in identifying potential partners and the feedback on our technology raised a lot of interests so we can definitely say that we will certainly we having several wine grenade aging Chilean and Argentinian wines in the near future!

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Give time to time, son

3/21/2017

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By Cyril Derreumaux

There is a French expression that goes like this: “Il faut donner du temps au temps”. A literal translation would be “you must give time to time”, or “allow time to time”. Essentially it means that some things cannot be hurried, and sufficient time must be given to ensure its creation or implementation.

In a world of instantly expected gratification, unlimited availability, worldwide share-ability and obliged likeability, we must learn to slow down and re-learn the art of giving time to time.

You cannot learn a language, master a musical instrument, repair a broken bone or cook a pie faster than the time it naturally requires.

I believe it is the same for wine. Technology and innovation, both in viticulture and winemaking, undeniably help the vine grower and the winemaker control most parameters of the art of making wine. Consistency in the wine profile is thus achieved more often than not. That being said, we must be careful not to take shortcuts and go “plus vite que la musique”, another French expression meaning you can’t go faster than the pace of music….

This is true also for wine ageing, or as French people call it “Élevage”, which is defined as the progression of wine between fermentation and bottling. Comparable to the term "raising" in English; think of élevage as a wine's adolescence or education”.

A winemaker must choose to mature their wine in barrels or tanks. The commercial reality is that not all wine can be matured the traditional way in oak barrels; about 90% of wine is matured in steel tanks. Barrel aging is essentially an “automatic” aging device as it balances naturally all the five parameters in the aging process: 1. Oxygen, 2. Oak compounds, 3. Turbidity (contact with the lees), 4. Temperature and 5. Time.

Micro-oxygenation was developed to reproduce the “oxygen” parameter in wine ageing. The technology is built on the premise that a tank can “behave” just like a barrel if we are authentic about how we recreate the important processes that happen in oak maturation.

At Wine Grenade, our goal is to improve the quality of wine when made at scale inside steel tanks. We aim to address the oxygen component of wine ageing by using a permeable membrane rather than a diffusor, meaning the oxygen is absorbed at a molecular level rather than through bubbles.

People ask me if wine can be aged faster by simply adding more oxygen than what a barrel would naturally allow. The answer is ‘probably yes’, but to my mind that’s taking a shortcut. We prefer to reproduce the natural condition of a proper ageing, and let the wine get ready as it should.

Like my mom would say…. “Sure you can cook faster a “coq-au-vin”, “a boeuf-bourguignon”, or a “cassoulet” by increasing the heat source, but you won’t get a good one!”
“Give time to time, son”…

By Cyril Derreumaux

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