10/08/08 Researching Better Wine

Researching Better Wine. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Washington State University has just opened a new research winery in Prosser. It is the largest experimental, non-commercial winemaking facility in the Pacific Northwest and according to WSU winemaker Kerry Ringer all wine-makers will benefit. RINGER: And a lot of things we think we know, we can now either prove them one way or another. There's a lot of great research out there and even in Washington there's a lot of great research out there but we haven't taken a lot of it to the wine making step. Their first batch of wine is in the fermentation process and Ringer says they hope to see some results in a couple of weeks. The research facility has received a lot of questions from winemakers already. RINGER: We've already had some interest even before we started building the winery from winemakers and this year we're doing a few studies with our industry partner Chateau St. Michele. We've done one study on cabernet sauvignon where they've manipulated irrigation in the field and this year they're making the wines in duplicate so we're hoping that we can then bring that type of a study into our winery and do it in replicates of four or in triplicate. Ringer says they will be looking at many different things from how grafting vines, fermentation temperatures, and different practices and equipment affect wine quality and of course they will be sharing that information. RINGER: I think it's going to be a great resource for the Washington wine industry and certainly we are open to ideas and we always try to communicate with people out in the industry to see what they want to know about. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.