(Dr. Hennie van Vuuren and Dr. Pat Bowen).

We have previously requested wineries to donate wines to the Library that have done well in competitions. We have now changed this approach and wine makers can nominate wines that they feel should age well. Every year, one bottle from each wine will be tasted by the panel and a second bottle will be analyzed by GC/MS and LC/MS to identify and quantify volatile and non-volatile flavour compounds in wine. The ageing of BC wines will also be compared to the ageing of outstanding Mondavi and Gallo (Sonoma) wines donated by these two wineries for this purpose.
Each contributing winery will receive confidential annual reports from the Wine Research Centre. The GC/MS and LC/MS profiles can also be used by wineries as chemical fingerprints of their wines and if anything goes wrong with a particular wine produced in the future, we’ll be in position to analyze the faulty wine and determine what compound is responsible for the off flavour.