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6 8 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | M a y - J u n e 2 016 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m excitement about analyses based on Fourier Transform Infrared Spec- troscopy (FTIR). "There was a move to people adopting mid-infrared technology such as FTIR," says Burns. "What I hear most from win- eries is that they aren't chemome- tricians, so they rely on the vendor for calibrations. In Europe, it wasn't exactly a disaster as this technol- ogy was first introduced, but there was a backlash, with wineries often saying they worried more about whether the data are useable, and were doing so many reference analyses that the technology was hardly useful." Burns thinks that mid-infrared- based analyses can be good, but only in the right hands. "We use mid-infrared for a limited set of analyses, but employ chemome- tricians to develop and maintain calibrations. This is on a different level entirely to what's commer- cially available. Mid-infrared is a productivity enhancer and a screen- ing tool to categorize samples, but doesn't replace reference analy- ses. You need to have the correct software in place to detect 'outlier' samples for which mid-infrared can give grossly inaccurate results, and keep reference analyses constantly available." He points out there's work afoot to take the chemomet- rics approach to another level by employing multiple analyses, such as bench-top NMR (nuclear mag- netic resonance) in conjunction with mid-infrared, visible and other spectroscopy. MICROBIOLOGY MORE POPULAR One of the big changes in recent years has been the adoption of molecular biology approaches for monitoring Brettanomyces in wine. In the past, this would require a much slower microbiological plat- ing approach. "The biggest advance at ETS has been molecular biology using primer/probe combinations Gordon Burns is co-founder and technical director of ETS Laboratories.