Anita Oberholster
Description: Anita Oberholster, cooperative extension specialist in enology at UC Davis. Her research focuses on viticulture practices, environmental factors, and how the process of wine making impacts wine composition and quality. In this episode, we start off with a brief overview of wine and the industry before diving deeper into how smoke and wildfires impact grapes. We explore all things smoke taint – what it is (both at a molecular and sensory level), how it gets into wine, and what can be done to prevent it.
Website: Anita Oberholster
Publications:
Investigation of Different Winemaking Protocols to Mitigate Smoke Taint Character in Wine
Volatile Organic Compound- Based Predictive Modeling of Smoke Taint in Wine
Resources:
Show Notes:
[0:04] Welcome, Professor Anita Oberholster
[1:52] Life Journey in Wine
[3:22] California Wine Industry
[3:47] Global Wine Producers
[5:03] Wine Production Process
[10:45] Harvesting Techniques
[13:06] Impact of Wildfires
[18:18] Understanding Smoke Taint
[25:26] Global Smoke Issues
[28:38] Financial Impact of Smoke
[30:32] Wine Vintage Concerns
[33:38] Health Concerns with Smoke Taint
[35:34] Treatment of Smoke-Impacted Grapes
[39:27] Future Solutions in Winemaking
[45:17] Natural Wines Explained
[50:09] Preventive Measures for Farmers
[1:04:47] Support for Farmers and Sustainability
Unedited AI Generated Transcript:
Brent:
[0:00] Welcome, Professor Anita Oberholster. Thank you for coming on today.
Brent:
[0:04] Absolutely. Thank you, Keller Brendan.
Anita:
[0:06] For inviting me.
Brent:
[0:07] This is going to be fun.
Keller:
[0:08] We'd love to start off by hearing a little bit more about your story. What got you interested in wine and how you ended up at Davis?
Anita:
[0:14] Okay, so I'm going to go, I'm going to be as precise as possible, but this is actually sort of a long story. I thought people may be interested to know that I actually grew up in a farm in South Africa. So my brother is now the fifth generation on this farm. But we did not grow grapevines because you need water for that. And we don't have water on our farm for irrigation.
Anita:
[0:36] So actually, we grow canola for canola oil and wheat for bread and things like that. But I did study at Salamosh University, majoring in both biochemistry and chemistry, because I couldn't decide between chemical engineering and medicine. And then honoring doing an honors in chemistry because there was less students there and better work opportunities had no idea what i was going to do with this um in south africa that time with chemistry you probably went into the pharmaceutical industry or in mining and i was not specifically interested in either one of those two so it was a wonderful opportunity when actually the Then Department of Viticulture and Technology at Salamash University was looking for somebody to go and study wine chemistry and come back and be a professor in the department in wine chemistry as their professor was getting close to retirement. So the South African wine industry actually gave me a scholarship and I went to the University of Adelaide to go and study wine chemistry. And what a wonderful blend of my interest in agriculture and chemistry. So I went back to South Africa and worked there for a while. But here's the interesting things.
Anita:
[1:47] Life is a puzzle, and we only see the puzzles pieces many times years apart. And I think this may be interesting for students as well to know little things comes together in ways that you do not always see.
Anita:
[2:01] So basically, my PI in Australia, Elizabeth Waters, is a really good friend with Professor Andy Waterhouse. He just retired a few years back. And they chatted. And when I went to conferences, even after my PhD, when I was working at Salambas University in the Department of Viticulture and Knowledge there, I would meet Andy Waterhouse through my old PI, chat, you know, sit on buses, going to conference dinners and things like that. So one day out of the blue, he calls me. He was then the chair of the Department of Viticulture and Knowledge at UC Davis and says, So, Anita, we have a job opening for a cooperative extension specialist in enology, or you can call me a professor of extension in enology.
Anita:
[2:48] Why didn't you apply for this position? You would be great. I'm like, I don't even know what that is. We don't have it in South Africa, right? He explained and convinced me to apply. And, you know, at the end, they offered the position to me. And I came and I have not regretted it. I've been here since April of 2011. And I have to say the industry here is great. You know, California is the fourth greatest wine producer of wine in the world. So much larger industry and things like that. I love South Africa,
Anita:
[3:19] but I have wonderful, had a wonderful job opportunity here. I get a lot of recognition of what I do, which is always very validating. So no complaints on this side. I love my job. I love what I do. And obviously, through the years, I didn't know much about wine when I started studying wine chemistry. But now, obviously, I do know a lot. And I do really appreciate wine. It's definitely something that I would consider one of my preferred beverages.
Brent:
[3:48] That's perfect. So, you said California was the fourth largest producer. Who are the other ones?
Anita:
[3:53] So, it can vary depending on the yield. So, Spain, Italy, France. Okay. Yes, are the contenders there. And they sometimes will vary who's first, who's second, who's third.
Brent:
[4:06] And I say this because I say specifically California.
Anita:
[4:08] Not U.S.
Brent:
[4:09] U.S.
Anita:
[4:10] Would also be the fourth largest producer because 85% of all wine gets produced in California.
Brent:
[4:17] Yeah. And then is that by, like, liters or, like, money made from the sales?
Anita:
[4:21] No, this is by amount of grapes. Okay. And wines produced, yes. Yeah.
Brent:
[4:26] Would you say, like... Total number of sales or the value of?
Anita:
[4:31] That's more tricking, right? Because like I can say, if you think about Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, wines from there are very well known, but it's also where some of our most expensive wines are coming from. So even though they actually make up a very small part of our percentage-wise of our overall production of grapes and wines, they actually contribute a large number economically because of the value of
Anita:
[5:00] those wines. So it's very difficult to answer that.
Brent:
[5:03] That makes sense.
Keller:
[5:04] Could you give us a brief overview of just how wine is made and especially the chemistry aspect of it?
Anita:
[5:09] Sure, I'm going to be trying to be as brief as possible and if something doesn't make sense you just ask me some more questions. Okay, so the big thing to distinguish between I'm just going to talk about table wines. So this would be white wines versus red wines, right? So you pick your grapes at harvest. Now, when do we think they mature? So basically, many will look at sugar because how sweet they are. But we can look at like acidity and other flavor components. Now, the big difference between whites and reds are that reds are fermented with the skins. So the color is mostly from the skins. Also, a lot of that astringency and bitterness that you get in a red wine. So astringency is that drying weight that you feel in your mouth. Red wines are often produced without skin contact or with very limited skin contact. So that's a difference. Basically, you pick your grapes.
Brent:
[6:00] You have it in bins at the winery.
Anita:
[6:01] First step, you crush it. Now, you can do something more like a natural fermentation where you wait for the natural yeast and flora that's on the grapes to start the fermentation. Or you can inoculate it. In research, we always inoculate because we need to control the environment. your risk of not inoculating of things like oxidation can take place. Interesting, no matter what it comes in with, if you inoculate, the yeast that you're introducing will take over because you're giving it much larger quantities. But even in wineries that do natural fermentation, whatever yeast they have floating around in that winery that's the most prevalent would probably take over that fermentation in general. So basically during fermentation, what's happening, you have a yeast, It uses the sugars as food.
Brent:
[6:48] And then it produces carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Anita:
[6:53] And that is in a nutshell what fermentation is. And most of what we do during fermentation is to keep your yeast happy so that it actually completes your fermentation. So we may add nitrogen, that is food, for the yeast. If you don't and the yeast becomes unhappy, they may start producing some sulfur-containing compounds that can give you that, you know, fecal smell, you know, things that we don't like.
Anita:
[7:19] Temperature control is how fast you want your fermentation to go. For whites, it's usually lower temperatures because you want it to go slower and have more of your volatile compounds. The aroma is very important in a white wine. Everywhere, but there even more. For a red wine, because we have skin contact, your fermentations can be a little bit faster, a little bit higher. Not too high because then you can inhibit your yeast or you can actually start destroying some of your positive compounds. So in your skins, you get your tannins that gives you astringency and other mouthfeel characteristics in a red wine, as well as a lot of your color. Okay, so and color is a very important quality barometer in red wine. So for white, you can crush it. You usually then will press it, get it off the skins, and you ferment the juice. White, you crush it, everything goes. So the mock, we call it the mock, goes into the fermentation. It all gets fermented. You can do extended maceration. That means after fermentation completed, all the sugar has been converted to alcohol. You have more contact because you want to get more tannins out. You want to get more color out.
Brent:
[8:42] But then you will press it.
Anita:
[8:43] And after that, you have a very basic wine. And then you can decide what else you want to do. Do you want to do barrel aging, for instance? Now, that's your most expensive option for wine aging. Barrels are very expensive. You would do barrel 80 for the leads a year. But these days, there are a lot of oak alternatives that makes it slightly cheaper. You can get the wine to the market earlier. That is either using staves or blocks of oak or even smaller. The smaller the piece of oak that you're using, the cheaper it usually is. And so this is why often you will see white wines on the shelf much earlier than you would see for a specific vintage than a red wine. Because red wine usually need more aging to soften all that astringency that you actually extracted from the skins, where white wines have much less of that because you give it less skin contact. And I should say seeds as well. You know, the seeds are in there and you actually get a lot of extraction from the seeds after a few days of fermentation as well.
Brent:
[9:47] Yeah. And then you said vintage, that's just the year it's produced.
Anita:
[9:49] That is just the year that it is produced. Yes, so you will often see that white wines of, you know, here the season is late, so the wines may be produced until the end of 2023 for the 2023 harvest, but you may actually see white wines on the shelf in 2024. You won't see a lot of red wines on the shelf from the 2023 harvest already by mid-2024. You may see lighter fruity style red wines that are made to consume early and they're made to be less tannic, less stringency, you know, so that they don't need to worry about that and need to give it aging. Your higher-end red wines and even your higher-end white wines many times have barrel aging, and you will see them only perhaps one year to two years after the vintage, the year they were actually harvested and processed.
Brent:
[10:46] And then can you briefly touch on the differences between hand harvesting and machine harvesting and how that impacts the process? Sure. So the thing is.
Anita:
[10:54] So hand harvesting is what everybody would like to do, right? But we don't have enough labor and it is very expensive. Depending on where you are.
Brent:
[11:02] Labor costs differently.
Anita:
[11:04] Now, machine harvesting is basically you get different machine harvesters, but let's just say in standard, it's a machine that go over the grapevine and it shakes it. And it basically loosens all the grape berries and it goes into its reservoir. Now, the problem with machine harvesting can be you can get some leaves and other things in there that's not too problematic.
Brent:
[11:28] You can sort that out.
Anita:
[11:29] But you do damage your grape skins somewhat. So what can happen is you can get some extraction already starting to happen in the machine harvester. And then it still needs to truck somewhere. So you have a little bit of risk of oxidation and things like that. I've done studies to compare in Pinot Noir because most people would say, oh, no, no, you shouldn't machine harvest Pinot Noir. It's a very, you know, lighter style, right, wine, higher quality made, you know, it would be sensitive to oxidation, things like that. And it's true. You know, I've done studies with several varieties, including Pinot Noir. And there's not that as big a difference between machine harvesting and handpicking than people think. Machine harvesting gives you a little bit more tannins because you get that extraction. But if you know that, you can actually adjust your winemaking style to actually adjust for that.
Brent:
[12:21] I would say for white wines.
Anita:
[12:23] It's important because you're going to know you should get some extraction. So now if you were planning to give it one or two hours extraction in your winery to get some of the volatiles from the skins without all the tannins, now you don't need to do that anymore because it's machine harvested. You know, you may get a little bit more than you want. That is the caveat. But in general, machine harvesting really does not have to impact the quality of grapes negatively.
Brent:
[12:51] The thing is, obviously.
Anita:
[12:52] There are some vineyards that can't be machine harvested. It depends on how far the grape vines are from each other, how steep the slope is of the vineyard, things like that. It needs to be set up for machine harvesting when you plant that vineyard.
Brent:
[13:06] Okay.
Keller:
[13:07] And one of the things we hear a lot about being in Davis, Northern California, near Napa and Sonoma, is the impact of wildfires on the vineyards. Could you explain a little bit about what that impact is, what smoke taint is, and how that impacts the wine?
Anita:
[13:20] Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, unfortunately, wildfires are here to stay, right? We've been so good at preventing wildfires that unfortunately we accumulated a lot of fuel out there. And, you know, we just can't keep up with removing all of it. And obviously, urbanization, moving into forestry areas, you know, it just, things happen. And then the weather is not helping, more extreme weather conditions. So, when there's a wildfire, if you think of trees, so any wood, actually, so grass, trees, no matter, bushes, whatever burns, 15 to 25% of it is lignin. Now, lignin is what gives wood its structure. Think of a vegetable celery stick, that crunch, that's lignin.
Brent:
[14:05] Now, the structure of lightning.
Anita:
[14:07] If you look at it.
Brent:
[14:09] You will see that when it burns.
Anita:
[14:11] It basically thermally degrades and releases what we call excessive amount of volatile phenols. So volatile phenol is a group of chemical compounds. It's volatile, obviously, so you can smell it. It has a ring structure for those that have chemistry and then a hydroxyl group on it. That's a basic phenol. The different phenols that can cause smoke tint just have different substitutions on that ring. So there are 7 to 10 main ones that we measure.
Brent:
[14:44] Now, what happens is when there's a high concentration of volatile phenols in the air surrounding a vineyard, so a vineyard very close to a fresh fire.
Anita:
[14:53] These compounds absorb into the grape berry. So it doesn't stand on the outside. It actually goes inside and gets absorbed there. Now, here's the thing. Volatile phenols are naturally present in grapes. They're there, but at very, very low concentrations. Now suddenly you get excessive concentrations absorbing into your grapes. Now at low levels, these compounds, I mean, actually, I just want to add something here. When you do barrel aging and you toast a barrel, barrel is oak, and you burn it on the inside, releases exactly the same compounds. So at low levels, these compounds are very pleasing. They can give you mild smoking, perhaps, but it's mostly spicy, nutty, toasty aromas. What you expect from a barrel. Very nice. Unfortunately, at excessive levels, it becomes barbecue, bacon, very smoke. Like, you know, think of in the old days where people would smoke in a pub and the next morning you go in. It's just like, you know, I just aged myself. Horrible smell. Old ashtray, if you ever want to put your nose in that.
Brent:
[16:02] That kind of thing.
Anita:
[16:04] It's nothing pleasing, right? Nothing that somebody would want in their wine. Very distinctive of what I call smoke taint is, and this is an important distinction, and so you can all be experts now. When you smell a wine, just because there's slight smokiness or something in there does not mean that wine is smoke tainted. What is for me characteristic and the only thing I look at is what we call an aftertaste, but it's not really an aftertaste. So what happens is when all these volatile phenols goes into grapes.
Anita:
[16:36] The grape actually adds sugars to these volatile phenols. We call it glycosylation. It's an enzyme that can do this. We think it's part of the defense mechanism of the plant, a detoxification, if you can call it that.
Anita:
[16:51] So now you have these compounds in a free form that you can smell when you press it and make a wine and bound form. Now, the bound is with the glycosides or the sugars. Now, they get released, some of them during fermentation.
Anita:
[17:05] But then we have enzymes in our saliva that can also release a portion of that and so what i see distinctive of smoke tag is a retronasal ashtray character really if you can imagine yourself licking an ashtray or you go camping and that old campfire in the morning you know and you go and stand next to it without hopefully getting all the ash in your lungs and you take a deep breath that old campfire smell that will get stuck here at the back that you almost feel like you can taste it now for our smoke tent standard to train people in smoke tank we burn licks until they're black and then we steep them in hot water filter it out and get people to taste that really so that gives you that ashtray now that ashtray is when i will go yes this wine is smoke tainted because on the aromas, it can be very different. It depends on what other aromas in the wine. There are other things that can give you some of those characteristics that I mentioned. And so I don't want to unfairly label a wine as smug tended when it really is
Anita:
[18:16] a different course or something else going on. So it's important to make that distinction. I think something else to say is.
Anita:
[18:24] Even if you see a vineyard in smug.
Anita:
[18:28] That doesn't mean the grapes from that vineyard will make smoke-tainted wine. Because these volatile phenols that I was talking about, when they get released, they break down actually within hours in the atmosphere. They get oxidized. And we're busy now trying to model risk assessment using weather patterns and other smoke characteristics. Characteristics um but so at this point in time we do know fresh smoke fresh for us is less than 24 hours that's what you need old smoke you can still smell it because your your your um you know sensory organs are actually very very sensitive and um it will look smoky what you're seeing is ash but that doesn't mean it's dangerous for the grapes so that's important to know and then i talk about a grape has a natural amount of volatile phenols, depending on the variety and where it's grown, then there's some elevation due to, say, it got some smoke exposure.
Brent:
[19:30] Now I say it's smoke impacted. The grapes are smoke impacted.
Anita:
[19:33] Only if that impact is high enough that it reaches smoke taint threshold levels. Threshold is where 50% of the population can see that there's something different, something going on. So basically, only then will I say it made a smoke-tainted wine. So there are a few steps there. And it's actually, you know, it's pretty complex. I mean, people in the industry still get confused with this, and we talk about it all the time.
Brent:
[20:02] Yeah. And then how does the volatile compounds actually get into the berry?
Anita:
[20:07] So we're not actually 100% sure about the mechanism, but we think it's a passive process. So a grape berry is actually a little bit like a sponge. So, yes, it can go through the stomata. It's where it breathes and photosynthesize. Or it can go through the cuticle. But we actually think it just goes passively in and that it's really a concentration effect. So, if you have high enough concentration on the outside and low concentration on the inside, it will actually go through. Now, because it then adds sugars to it, this is why we can see continual absorption. Because it sort of never reaches equilibrium. Um that's the best we've we think um it's very difficult to really study that mechanism and figure out what is really going on but that's probably the most likely way that this is happening.
Brent:
[21:00] Yeah and then quick clarification the stomata is on the leaves so if you go through the leaves to the berry or directly through the berry.
Anita:
[21:06] Yes okay so yeah so i should explain that yeah there's a little bit in the grass but very little it's in the leaves so so what happens when When you have a grapevine, these volatile phenols can absorb on both the leaves and the grapes. Nothing else. Those are the two.
Anita:
[21:22] So they can be translocated from the leaves to the grape. We have a couple of studies that showed that. But it's a very small amount. It's a very small amount. So most of what is in the grape actually went directly through the grape. And what I would say also is that we are not recommending anybody that may have a vineyard. We don't recommend that people remove leaves. There's several reasons for it. We think very little actually moves from the leaves to the grape berries. The other thing is these leaves are actually great protectors as well because they're scrubbing the air of a lot of volatile phenols. And you never know if you can't harvest immediately after a smoke event because your grapes aren't ripe, those leaves can protect you against a future smoke event. And the other problem is something like sunburn. Leaves are usually there to not only get your grapes ripe, so you need that, you need some leaves to get your grapes ripe for photosynthesis, as the very self do very, very little. But the other reason is also it protects your grapes against the sun, right, and heat. And so in California, most areas are pretty warm. So we really do need that protection.
Keller:
[22:40] Yeah. And is that spongy effect of the grapes, is that unique to just grapes? Or could you possibly have another crop on your vineyard that when there was smoke coming in, kind of like taking in some of those volatile phenols?
Anita:
[22:52] Yeah, it's interesting, you know. So there are, you know, so things like, you know, oranges and so forth that have a thick peel that you take off, I'm less concerned about. But in theory, things like a pear, a peach, table grapes, could potentially also absorb these compounds. Now, up to date, we don't have a problem with that. And I think partly because the areas where these things are grown are often not where the wildfires have been and have been the most impacted by smoke. But something else is the sugar. because even table grapes, we haven't seen a smoke taint issue because you're talking about a lot of sugar present in those fruits. And sugars can basically hide smoke taint. And the sugars can also inhibit the enzymes in your saliva that could potentially hydrolyze or remove the sugar of some of these compounds so that you could get that retronasal character. But I mean, what's volatile is volatile and you can smell it. But for some reason, I do think the sugars help a lot.
Brent:
[23:56] And then would smoke-tinted grapes have less sugar overall because more sugar is being allocated to masking the….
Anita:
[24:04] So this is a unit difference, right? So when we're talking about sugars for like alcoholic fermentation and what you're tasting, we're talking about grams. The glycosylation process, we are talking about micrograms per kilogram of volatile phenylglycosides to nanogram per kilogram. So you would not notice a difference. Yes. So there will never be too little sugar for it to actually add sugar or something like that.
Keller:
[24:32] What are some of the other areas in the world that are dealing with smoke dain? Is it just California or is it a global issue?
Anita:
[24:37] So this has been an issue for probably 15 years more than ours in Australia. So Australia have done basically all the research until we were becoming more regularly impacted by fires since 2017. So, Australia have a huge issue. But then Chile have fires now. They've had fires a few times that I know of, huge impact on their industry. South Africa as well. Spain had a few huge fires. France as well. So, you know, and most other countries have had fires, but those are the ones that I can just think of in the last few years that had fires big enough and had a bad timing around harvest that I really know.
Anita:
[25:22] That that could potentially have been a concern so this is definitely a global problem.
Brent:
[25:26] Yeah and then for like chile or australia would like agricultural burns from neighboring countries impact spote at all.
Anita:
[25:33] Okay and actually canada i miss canada i don't want canada to feel that i forgotten them canada um so you prescribe burns controlled burns so this is something that really has become an issue in the last few years more the okay the positive look controlled burns is something we need because we have so much fuel out there and we need to control the fuel. Now we have the problem that we have crops that are sensitive to those prescribed burns. So we are trying to get those conversations better.
Anita:
[26:05] So that they really think about the fact if there's a berry on the vine, that vineyard may be impacted. So my advice to people that organize prescribants are those grape berries are like children. Whatever is unhealthy for the elementary school is unhealthy for the grapes. Because we just don't have better data at this point. We will get better, but we're working on it. Then fires from other countries, like, you know, last year, we even got fires from blowing from British Columbia and places like that. Here's the thing. Because we know volatile funnels break down very quickly, I'm not too concerned about fires and smoke that comes from very far away. Because these volatile funnels do break down. So, this is why it's, you know, 24 hours is the max, we think. It's probably even shorter than that. And so we will come up, we're working on predicting what is a safe distance and it won't be hundreds of kilometers or miles. So, yes, so that's less of a problem. The other thing with, that is not fires from other countries, but for prescribed burns, what somebody does need to keep in mind, prescribed burns are usually much smaller areas. So, and that smoke gets diluted very quickly. So the danger becomes small very quickly with a short distance. So it's just a little bit of planning. We can do prescribants and keep our crops safe. We definitely can. It's just... Opening the right communication channels.
Brent:
[27:34] Yeah. And then does the fuel source of the fire matter?
Anita:
[27:37] Yeah. So like I mentioned, you know, grass, bushes, trees, they all give off volatile phenols. However, there's a difference in the composition of volatile phenols that they produce. You know, even we know hardwood and softwood gives you different combinations of these compounds. However, they all give you the marker compounds, even though it's at different levels. And they all result in a wine that tastes bad. And I would say is smoke tainted. So there are differences. And we actually have a professor, Thomas Collins, in Washington State University. There are fires up there are mostly grasses and bushes. And he's doing quite a bit of work on looking at the different flora that they have there and to see what differences there is in that. But we also have data from forestry. Specifically, this is why I know hard and soft trees, for instance, what the difference is there. We've done some testing, but I don't have a project that specifically looks at that question at the moment.
Brent:
[28:38] Yeah.
Keller:
[28:39] And how big of an impact financially is this on the wine industry? You see behind us, you have a big grant for research exposure on smoke, but how much is that really of a percentage?
Anita:
[28:51] I'll just give you the idea. You know, when federal and state government suddenly gives out a lot of grants for a specific topic, it's because they have been shown that financially it's worth spending that little bit of money on research because the return on investment is going to be so worth it. Definitely. You know, the best numbers we have is from 2020. 2020 was horrific, right? It impacted most of NARPA, Sonoma, Lake and Midasino County. Now, the best I can tell you is John Maru Marco is an economist. He did an estimate, and his last estimate was $3.5 billion was lost just on wine wholesale value. Okay. So that doesn't take... Other things into account. You know, wine and the tourism in Napa and Sonoma is very interconnected to each other, right? It doesn't take into account all the money spent on crop insurance that I think is somewhere around $400 billion, but I speak on a correction.
Anita:
[29:53] So the impact is greater than that. I'm sure 2020 was not a particularly bad year, and I don't hope for another 2020 ever. But, you know, we had fires in 2008 that had a huge impact on Napa in 2017. 2018 in Lake Medicina County, you know, 2021 and 2022, the Sierra Foothill farmers were greatly impacted. So every year almost, there has been a region that had been impacted. And I'm just talking about California. Oregon and Washington states have been seeing even more regular fires. And then obviously a lot of other countries in the world, right?
Anita:
[30:31] We would hope to help everybody.
Brent:
[30:33] Yeah. And then typically for the wine tasting and the tourism side of things, don't they taste wines that are three years old, like the vintage from three years prior, typically?
Anita:
[30:43] It depends, right? It depends on the wine style.
Brent:
[30:46] Right?
Anita:
[30:46] So, like I said, you know, somebody may have a fruity, fruit-forward Sauvignon Blanc, and that may actually be less than a year old. But yes, your full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, often yes, because they need that time to age and soften the wine. You know, I call it going from fine emery, that's an Australian word, that is what grating, what is paper?
Keller:
[31:13] Sandpaper.
Anita:
[31:14] So, you know, going from a sandpaper filling in your mouth to something that's more like velvet, if you can imagine that. So that is what that aging process does. It just softens their wines, making it a more pleasing wine and mouthfeel experience for most of the consumers.
Brent:
[31:33] Yeah, because I know my buddy who has a winery in Napa was worried about 2023 because the 2020 vintage basically got scrapped across the valley. So, then everyone had to tap into preserves and they don't know what they're going to present.
Anita:
[31:45] Yes. So, that did happen. So, especially high-end wineries. They have very little wiggle room for quality, right? So, they can't treat the wine really because all treatments take away from the quality. You know, if you want to sell your wine at top dollar, it better be that quality. And obviously, they don't want to have a negative, you know, show anything that may be perceived as negative by the consumers. Nobody wants that. And something important that I would say is that, you know, 2020, people would tell me, oh, so I shouldn't buy anything with vintage 2020. No, that's not true.
Anita:
[32:22] To know if somebody was impacted was actually very difficult. In 2020, we had two huge fires. And they were caused by lightning events, right? And some wineries and vineyards were still good, even in Napa, after the first lot of fires. It was the second fire, especially for the Napa vineyards, that I think was too much. So it depends on when those grapes were harvested, where they are. It's very difficult to predict wind direction, topography. There's so many things that have an influence that I don't want people to assume. What I do want people to know is that if there's something on the shelf in a specific price range, you can expect it to be the quality that it should be for wine in that price range, right? And it should not contain any kind of tine, not just not smoked tine. There should be nothing wrong with that wine or it shouldn't be on the shelf in the first place. And nobody wants to have their consumer have a negative experience about their wine, right? Because there is so much to select from. Nobody wants somebody to go, oh, no, no, I had a bad experience with that label, so I'm never buying that again. Because that's what you do if you have hundreds of other options, right? So people should not be worried about wines that are on the shelf, that the quality they should be.
Brent:
[33:38] Yeah.
Keller:
[33:38] And is wine that's smoke-tainted, is it unhealthy for you or is it just the taste that is abnormal?
Anita:
[33:44] So it's just the taste. So, you know, these compounds, I could say, even, look, to have all its own funnels that's in the toxic range is way more than you will ever see. I've looked at wines that I made from vineyards where it was surrounded by fire and the vineyard actually burned. So you can't really get much worse than that. And I'm not concerned about those wines, right? I taste them all the time. That is not, it's not a health concern. Now, something that people will mention is that, well, you know, like, say, for instance, in 2020, when parts of Santa Rosa did burn down as well, Coffee Park, you know, it was really sad. And people's like, okay, what about that? That was not just wood burning, right? You had fridges and freezers and plastics. And obviously, those things give off unhealthy chemical compounds like plasticizers, et cetera. So at this point in time, I have to say, we haven't seen those compounds. I haven't looked excessively at every wine that I have, but I have looked at some of our most highly impacted wines that I would expect, and we haven't seen anything. So I think part of the reason is because...
Anita:
[34:53] Most of our wildfires are wildfires. I should say fires are wildfires, right? So the amount of structures that burn in comparison to the amount of wood is actually small. It gets diluted, right, very quickly. So I think that's why we haven't at this point really seen anything. That doesn't mean that if you're a grape grower and you had a vineyard right next to a factory and that factory burns down and the smoke come over to you, then obviously you need to check your grapes. That is a concern. But in general, wildfire smoke, no, at this point in time, we really haven't found anything that should make you concerned about your health.
Brent:
[35:34] So what can be done with grapes that have been exposed to smoke?
Anita:
[35:39] Unfortunately, not as much as I would like. This has been part of the problem. So in the winery, there are finings that you can do. There's different things you can do. Activated charcoal fining. You could find with, we've been looking at molecule imprinted polymers that doesn't have, we still need to work through the approval process to use those types of resins. There's other combos that people are using in the industry that's removing some of these compounds. Reverse osmosis is something you could do too. But all these procedures, you know, a lot of handling of wine. You lose some wine. You also lose compounds that you don't want to remove. You may remove some positive aroma compounds, some of that mouthfeel that you like of your wine. So there is a quality impact. So it's expensive and there's a quality impact. So yes, you can treat the wine, but it really is a good option only for wines that's very low impact. Or if you can have a little bit of smoke impacted wine, you can treat it and blend it with other wine or something like that. So it depends on the winery and what you have, whether treatment makes sense. We are working on better options, things that will only remove the compounds of interest.
Anita:
[36:58] And leave the rest alone, right? So that you can sell that wine in the price range that it was earmarked for, so you don't have a huge quality impact. What I would say is treatment will always be focused on low-impacted wines, right? Not the vineyard that burnt almost everything off and, you know, was surrounded by smoke for three months and whatever. Those ones would be very highly impacted. Those grapes will never get harvested. It and you know i hope those people have crop insurance to help them out a little bit at least but that doesn't make sense you can't treat that much the quality impact would be too great but for low impact there's options and i think in the next five years we will have really good options what.
Brent:
[37:42] Do you think some of those newer options are going to look like.
Anita:
[37:44] We're looking at um targeting enzymes to cleave the bound from the free so everything is free form if you have everything in the same molecule-wide range and same chemical characteristics, it's easier to remove it and only that. So that's one thing. We're also looking at enzymes to actually gobble up the volatile phenols and eat it. So that's a little bit more down the line. Not me. This is collaborators, really smart people. Then we're looking at different resins. So resins are things, you pack a column, If you make a filtration membrane and you push the wine through it, right? Active Vita charcoal, we know works, but it just strips a little bit. I'm not a big fan of it because it can take aroma compounds out.
Anita:
[38:34] Molycane printed polymers have some good, they're really well at removing both free and bound. The problem is it removes color as well, which I don't like. So we're trying to optimize the use of that. And then we're checking a whole range of new. I'm working with a chemical engineer on Runabound that's also in my department. And we have a chemical engineering student looking at different resins. If we find something that works, we can even immobilize it on something. And build a column and move it through. There is so much out there that we haven't even investigated yet. So this is why I'm quite positive that we will find solutions. You know, the research here is really young. You know, the first time I had anything to do with smog done was 2017. You know, and then it takes a couple of years to actually find funding,
Anita:
[39:26] to actually do everything you want to do. So I would really say I really got going in 2020 with this research you know in research terms that is four years is nothing yeah.
Keller:
[39:37] And what stage in the production process would a lot of these treatments be coming in or is it variable depending on the.
Anita:
[39:43] Treatment you could do it actually at any time if you wanted to i mean i would say what makes sense would be you can do it on the grape juice or you can do it on the wine um after fermentation and malolactic fermentation if you're doing malolactic fermentation, So now I just brought in a new term. Malolactic fermentation, we mostly do these on red wines and often do it on Chardonnay as well. It is just we add a bacteria that will basically take your malic acid and produce lactic acid from malic acid, right? And basic lactic acid is just softer and less sour, I would say, than malic acid. So as an apple acid versus a milk acid, think of it that way, just softer. So that's why, especially for red wines, people do it. But anyway, so it's a process after primary fermentation, which I described earlier in the program. So that's when I would do it. I did a little bit of testing doing grape juice versus doing the wine. And I actually found it less of having an overall impact in the wine than in the juice. But I won't say I did enough that I can make this decision for everybody. You know, bench trials, really important to do bench trials. But I think at this stage, I tell people, make the best quality wine you can.
Anita:
[41:05] If you know you're going to have to treat it, that can strip things out, especially red wine. Do everything you can to get as much tannin and much color out. So that's extended maceration or hot fermentation.
Anita:
[41:17] Lots of pump overs. This is when you mix the skins with the seeds. So you get more, and skins with the seeds with the juice, I should say, below it. So you can get more extraction. Because then you know you're going to treat and you're going to remove some of that. You don't have to worry about having too much of a tannic wine with the smoke tank compounds that's in there.
Brent:
[41:37] Yeah. And then kind of backtracking a little bit, are natural wines, what's the definition of the natural wine? Because I know you said earlier that the fermentation process just happens naturally. Is that what a natural wine is?
Anita:
[41:48] Oh, you know, so I laugh because, you know, it really depends on your interpretation. So natural wine is not certified at this point in time, right? So, natural wine is whatever definition you want to give it.
Brent:
[42:02] Love that.
Anita:
[42:03] So, you know, what's certified is organic farming, right? So, you can have a wine that's made from organic grapes, farmed grapes. That is certified. People check it. Cool. But then, what's the difference between natural wine and organic wine? The thing is, organic wines, they mostly try to use, They have some guidelines of using as little as possible of sulfur dioxide, which is the main antioxidant that we use in wine. And then, you know, they will use natural components versus some chemical alternatives that we may use and is approved in the winery. That's the difference between. And they will not inoculate. It usually is. But, you know, not that I think they could if they wanted to, but normally they won't. Now, natural wine, the idea is very much you stand back as much as possible and don't intervene at all with the grapes. But like I said, it's not like anybody checks. So you could really do what you want. But at most, I would say, if most people, when they talk about organic versus natural, the main difference seems to be in natural, they try to use no sulfate oxide at all.
Brent:
[43:20] Okay.
Anita:
[43:21] Right? Right. So now believe it or not, you're never going to get away from sulfur because yeast do produce sulfur dioxide as well. Very low amounts, but they do. So there's always going to be a small amount in there. And, you know, sensitivity to sulfur dioxide is actually less than 1% of the population. Yeah.
Brent:
[43:40] And then will white wines have more or less issues with smoke taint because you're not having as much contact with the skin? Yeah.
Anita:
[43:47] Yes or no? You know, everything depends, kind of answer, right? But I'm going to try and explain that it depends. Because you can make a decent white wine without skin contact, yes. When you had low smoke exposure, that's great. You can probably make a nice white wine without smoke taint. However, a white wine can tolerate less of these smoke marker compounds because it's a simpler matrix. Red wine that has a whole way more in it. So if you look at a red and white wine, they won't have the same threshold value for smoke tank compounds. So that's just something to keep in mind. But in general, yes. But I still don't think if you have a high-impacted vineyard with a lot of smoke, it will still be very difficult. The other thing is machine harvesting.
Brent:
[44:36] Yeah.
Anita:
[44:37] If you are forced to do machine harvesting, when you knew your grapes were smoke exposed, you're going to get that bit of skin contact. And so with low impact, perhaps you're still okay. Higher, that may be a problem. For red wine, it doesn't matter because you're making a wine in contact with skins. So some people are making rosés when they think they have smoke impact. Obviously, you can do that. Rosé is just red grapes that had very little skin contact. It's made more like a white than a red wine, more fruity, earlier, you know, consumption. The thing there, one again, it's a simpler matrix, so you can tolerate less of these compounds.
Anita:
[45:17] Why we didn't see a lot of 2020 rosais is that obviously it needs to make economic sense, right? And in Naube Valley, Cabernet 7-0 is really expensive.
Brent:
[45:27] Yeah.
Anita:
[45:27] And I don't think you can ask enough for that rosy to really, and sell it, right, to make up for the cost of your grapes.
Brent:
[45:35] Yeah.
Keller:
[45:35] And then with the threshold of impact, how is that being tested? Is it a sensory evaluation like you mentioned earlier with the ashtray, or is there a chemical threshold with the VPs that you're looking for?
Anita:
[45:47] Yeah, so there's different ways of doing it. So I have a project looking to determine the threshold levels of smoked and mulcher compounds in different wine matrices, as well as a very good collaborator of mine, Elizabeth Tomasina from Oregon State University. And we're using different varieties in two different approaches to do the same thing.
Anita:
[46:11] Now, classically, how you do threshold is, or you have a compound that gives you a stinky aroma. Okay. You want to know what that threshold is. So what you do is you spike that compound in ascending order. And you basically test until 50% of people can see there's a difference. And then you go and look at what concentration that is, right? Now, the best is obviously to do it in like a base wine or something if you are determining a threshold in a wine. The problem is smoke marker compounds, they have done that for individual volatile phenols, and the levels are high. You need, for one, alcohol, you need, I think it's something like 22, 24 micrograms per liter in a wine for threshold. We get smoke-tainted wines sometimes that have two to five micrograms per liter. So how does that work? Because these compounds have synergistic impacts on each other. And the other thing is you have sometimes two wines with exactly the same amount of smoke-tainted wines that we can measure and express smoke-tainted very differently. It's because we know things like alcohol has an influence.
Anita:
[47:25] Higher alcohol can hide it. So I think this is why, you know, you're not going to see perhaps anything in a whiskey or a barley. At those alcohols, I don't think you're going to see smoke taint. High sugar, about three grams per liter, can start actually inhibiting the smoke taint character. Fruity aroma compounds, you know, lots of citrus or berries can hide it. And then somebody actually did a test in South Africa to show that green compounds, your methoxypyrazines that give you green pepper, grassy aromas, they can actually make it worse. So it's interesting. Not everything makes it better. So it's very, very complex. So how I'm personally approaching this whole threshold story, because we can't spike it with compounds, is we've been housing grapes, build a tank outside of a winery, with smokers, electrical smokers, and we basically, half of our grapes we don't tanked.
Anita:
[48:24] Other half, we're exposed to smoke and we taint them maximum level. So now we have same grapes, 100% smoke impacted, not impacted at all. And then we do stainless steel, so like fresh fruity style kind of wine, supposed to go early on the market. And we do 100% new oak barrel aging. So we are doing two extremes and for a variety. So we've done this now for Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Zinfandel. And then we make serial dilutions of the 100% smoke impacted with the non-impacted and do studies on that to determine at what level of smoke impacted wine included and smoke marker compound concentrations can these people identify smoke type. But we actually go for identification. So there's two types of thresholds. The moment you see something is different, but you don't know what it is, or an actual recognition threshold where it's mock-to-end it. So we actually just finished, or no, we're actually now busy. We're going to finish this quarter looking at our first set of wines, doing sensory analysis. So that's ongoing research.
Anita:
[49:39] So my collaborator in Oregon State University, she's more made an interesting mix of all these different compounds and is trying a more different route to determining threshold. So that would be cool. So between the two of us, we will have a pretty good idea. And obviously she started with Pinot Noir because that's one of the most important varieties in Oregon. But we're doing some similar varieties as well so that we can more directly compare.
Brent:
[50:04] Yeah, that's great. Right. So then what would you say to the farmers out there growing the grapes? What could they do to prevent it? What models should they be looking at or using? Is there much that can be done?
Anita:
[50:16] Okay. At this time, it's very limited. You know, what I would say is what we do know so far. So I'm looking at some, you can call it an edible coating or you can call it barrier sprays. Things that you can spray on the grayberry to try and protect it from smog. Now we have found some potential barrier sprays that work. And one of them is actually Cowlin. It is, the trade name is Surround. It's a clay. It's actually used for sunburn in grayberries already. I'm looking at GM3 from EMP polymer company. Those are used for powdery moldium, things like that. So we've been, and I've been looking at new compounds, things that haven't actually been used in the industry, right? The advantage of looking things that's already out there, they've already gone for all the FDA approval processes. So, and we needed an answer yesterday, not five years from now. So this is why it's sort of doing a combo of both.
Anita:
[51:17] So they do show some efficacy. So the problem is application in the vineyard. When you do a sprayer, you know, if you look at a grapevine, so if you think you need to spray, so here's the problem. Very full canopies that protect your grapes is really difficult to get the grapes, but then those leaves can also protect your grapes from the smoke. So, you know, and you may need it because you're in a very hot area and you need that shade for the grapes. But if the grapes are more open, it's more easy to spray. them, but the problem is the inside.
Anita:
[51:50] Right? That insight is very difficult to reach. So we don't think we get really much more than 30 to 40% coverage. So whatever you're spraying on will never be a silver bullet, but at low smoke exposure, it could help.
Anita:
[52:03] However, this is a preventative measure. It's something you apply in case there is a fire. This is not something you apply when there's a fire or there's smoke in there we have found that whatever you apply on that berry needs to be dry okay anything wet it seems like it's either increasing the surface area of the berry and just more things absorb through or it's actually dissolving the volatile phenols and then concentrating it very nicely and it goes into the berry but it can make things worse so i don't want people to apply something somebody tells them it's working and there's no data out there, they should contact me first. Because there's things that are really bad and a very bad idea that can actually damage your gripes, right? But I would say, you know, things like Surround, Gym 3, I looked at, it seems to be very similar to Cowlin. They seem to have some efficacy. It's not great. I spray them on both the grape zone, sorry, the grape zone and on the canopy, just because you can get some absorption translocation from the leaf. So, you know, it's not that much extra work and these compounds aren't very, or these sprays aren't very expensive. I apply both. If there's no rain, they stick.
Anita:
[53:27] The only thing is at the moment, you need to remove it. You need to wash it off, unfortunately. The volatile phenols are absorbing onto the grapes itself. And so if it's still absorbed on that barrier, it will desorb during the winemaking process. So you didn't win much. The other thing is it seems like over time, it may give off these volatile phenols. And over time, they may be moving into the grapes. And we're doing more studies about that. So it is a good idea if you add a huge smoker vent and you can harvest after the smoker has cleared, obviously.
Anita:
[54:03] Or if it's so far away from harvest, there's no way you can pick, then I would recommend washing the berry spray off and then applying a new one if you think it's needed and there's still risk of fires. So this is the problem, removing it. The best thing is water. We're California. Any solution with water is not a great solution. So we're working on that as well, trying to find better options and options that you don't have to rinse off. So we're looking into it. So, yeah, nothing unfortunately great for the grape grower at this stage. Something I would like to say is take samples. Every two weeks from Verizon, that's when our fire risk go higher. Every two weeks. Just take a sample. You know for crop insurance, you need a gripe sample.
Anita:
[54:57] Of each block of each variety. Get a chest freezer and just throw it in there with the date and what block it is. If you don't need it, you don't need it. However, when there's a fire, yes, I understand for crop insurance, you need to go afterwards and get that sample that is smoke-compacted. Here's the problem.
Anita:
[55:19] There's also a lot of issues with wineries. Sometimes there's litigation later on, and people contact me and want to prove that the smoke didn't come from them, it happened at the winery, or I don't know, many different things. If I don't have a before sample, it's very difficult. I don't know what your baseline is, right? And even the after-smoke sample, throw that in the freezer too, because then you send your sample to a lab, you have nothing left, and then you didn't measure all the compounds. So for crop insurance, you only need to measure galchol and formethyl galchol. Those are two of the volatile phenols. But we know there's way more than that. There's at least the seven marker compounds that most commercial banks are able to measure. So you should just ask for it. But the bound is very important. So depending on which lab you go to, you should do totals because they use acid hydrolysis. It's just a different analysis. Or if you go to a lab that does the individual bound, get the individual bound. It makes the analysis way more expensive. I get that. So if you don't want to do it just in case, at least have the grapes in the freezer so you can do it later. Because if anybody needs to do problem solving, We need the complete set of analysis, not just the two compounds that's required from crop insurance.
Keller:
[56:41] Yeah, that's super interesting. And then kind of stepping away from the smoke taint, a little bit more fun question. If you were to have your own vineyard and you had to make your own wine, what would be your process? And I guess starting out, where would you want to be growing?
Anita:
[56:58] You know, there's some really, really lovely spots. you know obviously I would want to pick an area that have very very good that can you can grow very good quality grapes right if you're now not asking you know what my budget is that you know I would love some of the hill areas in in Alpa Valley and you know even in the valley floor there's some great spots but I do like the idea of being more away from the highways and things clearer air cooler nights slower ripening so one of those hills would be beautiful So, Tsunama Coast have some really, really nice areas as well.
Anita:
[57:34] You know, having that ocean influence, the fog coming in. You have more dangers for fungal diseases and things like that. But, you know, California is getting hotter. So, I like the idea. And good quality is cool nights, warm days, and not too long. But neither do you want ripening to happen in two weeks, right? It does not enough time for all the biosynthetic processes to happen properly. And then down in San Luis Bispo area, there is some really nice vineyards and wines that I really like. So, you know, that is also one of those places. One of those places. And, you know, depending what I would grow as a variety would be what would suit those areas, right? If it's really nice and cool, I love Pinot Noir. If it's a little warmer, Cabernet Sauvignon is really, really forgiving. You know, then I do like some Rhone varieties as well. I do like playing around. I would be the person that makes a wine every year, but it would be a different composition, right? It would be the best wine I could make that year. So it would be involving doing lots of different ferments that I leaned off to the fact. That would be my process, right?
Anita:
[58:50] And, you know, I'm not that stuck on, you know, natural fermentation is great, but I get nervous. So if it doesn't happen within a certain period of time, I have nothing against inoculation. It's the same kind of use, just isolated and freeze-dried, right? You're not adding anything unknown or synthetic, really, to the wine. So this is why I always laugh when people ask about natural wines, because I see...
Anita:
[59:17] Wine in general is pretty natural, right? So, I mean, that would be my process. I would love to make a wine every year that is to some specific tastes, my own, but also what other people like. Like my husband would love, and he would say easy drinking, right? I've educated him now, he would say that. But it would be soft, velvety wines, right? Love them too. But I do really appreciate even a younger red wine something that is pretty tannic and drying beautiful right i love some of these italian tannin bombs um and then um i also like wine you want wines for different occasions so i also like more lighter style pinot noirs more fruity forward some complexity but something that you can drink. You know, I drink most of my wines in that five-year period. I don't easily age a wine much more than five years.
Anita:
[1:00:20] You can. There's wines you can age up to 10. Me personally, after that, you know, with the high pHs and lower acids that we have because we are in a hotter climate, I personally don't like that aging style. There's people that love it. Me personally, you know, I like them soft, but still a lot there, a lot there, a lot of fruit, a lot of tannin, but you know, personal preference. This is what I love about wine. The best wine is the wine you like and can afford, by the way, right?
Brent:
[1:00:54] And then, do you want to shout out any of your favorite wines?
Anita:
[1:00:57] Can never do that.
Keller:
[1:00:59] You're going to be fired.
Anita:
[1:01:00] You know, here's the thing, right? Here's the thing. Obviously, you know, there's almost 6,000 wineries just in California. And I'm a cooperative extension specialist paid by the state to do problem solving for the whole of California. Now, luckily, not all 6,000 wineries contact me because I will, you know. Even the few that I do talk with a lot, you know, my inbox is a mess. So I would never want to highlight a specific wine or a specific producer, though obviously I have my favorite. I will tell you often.
Brent:
[1:01:36] Sure.
Anita:
[1:01:37] But what I would say is there's some beautiful wines everywhere. Don't discount an area. You know, in the Bay Area, there's some really great wines. Just be open-minded. I would say the best thing is, even when you have a favorite, we all have a favorite, and then we get stuck in that favorite because you know what you're going to get, and there's safety in that. And I know wine is expensive. But do try different things. Go on wine tastings and try everything that they have, right? In different regions, if you're there, it's really every wine region has something special and something that I'm prepared to buy myself and drink. When I go and visit wineries, I always buy at least one bottle of wine for myself, always. And I would say, and this is what I like, I appreciate a lot of different wines. And as you evolve your palate, you're going to see, you're going to start changing the wines that you like most probably, but also the kind of wines and the breadth of the wines that you appreciate is going to grow.
Brent:
[1:02:42] Yeah.
Anita:
[1:02:43] Right? So that is part of, if you're interested in wine, that is what I think you can never stop learning. There's always something new. I sometimes go to Total Wines. I have a budget. And I would ask advice and then I will buy wines from Spain, Italy, France, you know, Portugal and everywhere and just try new wines and see what I think about them, right? So that's a cool way, you know, have a wine budget, go and say, okay, I can only, this is my budget and I want to buy so many bottles. What can you recommend and tell the guy your style and what you like and, you know, it's an experiment.
Brent:
[1:03:21] Yeah, that's great.
Keller:
[1:03:22] Is there any other parting advice or words you want to say to both winemakers or students?
Anita:
[1:03:28] You know, I think here's the thing, right? The one industry and like all of agriculture, right? There's always new issues coming up, right? And sustainability is always a big question, really. How can we be sustainable in the future? You know, I would want to say that we're working on it. Research is really focused on it. The government understands this as well. We're getting good support for current issues, right? I wish always there's always a need for more, but we are getting good support and we will. And that the grape and wine industry will not go away. It will be here for our children and our grandchildren. And after that, it is a very complex industry. It really is, you know, from soil level.
Anita:
[1:04:16] To air kind of thing here um and this is why i love what i do so much diversity in research right and diversity in people that i work with it is wonderful so you know and we should do all we can to protect our farmers okay um i i do want you know i get i get totally worked up when i get things like we don't need ag and i always think where do you think your food comes from but there are really people, you know, that just don't know about agriculture and don't understand.
Anita:
[1:04:47] The challenges of agriculture and how difficult it is. Most farmers struggle to make a living. They do, right? And so, you know, this is not a blanket thing, but just go and look and see how you can support your farmers. Are they actually the ones that get all the support that they need or are they the ones that actually need us to go and visit, have a look, talk to them? These people love to share their life stories and where they're from and you know i come from ag so you know for me it's a real emotional thing for me i i just imagine a world without beautiful vineyards right just think of napa and sonoma without a single vineyard no no i can't think of anything that you know it's part of the landscape it makes it what it is today right it's really pretty and actually in general not bad for the environment and farmers is doing everything they can to be sustainable really um and to lower their fingerprint um so you know really farmers are trying don't think they're not in general everybody i'm working with is trying really hard and obviously winemakers as well on the winery side people really want to know what we're doing to help them and they're coming up with ideas all the time and supporting research to find greener better ways to do things that's.
Brent:
[1:06:10] Amazing no thank you so much.