10/24/07 Idaho wine testing is underway

As the industry grows so too does the demand for affordable wine-quality testing. Well, its here, thanks to the University of Idaho's Food Technology Center in Caldwell. Center manager Drew Dalgetty says Idaho's 30 wineries used to send their wine to California for testing to assure a top quality product. Now testing can be done in Caldwell where they start with pre-harvest or pre-fermentation work. DALGETTY "This is where you're looking at the sugar in the grapes so that they can determine when they're going to harvest., looking at the acid content in the grapes that's going to give them some idea of what their finished product is going to be or maybe what they need to do to get the finished product to where it needs to be. Once the grapes are harvested and they're crushed and they turn them into juice again we're going to continue to monitor some of the sugars, we're going to monitor the acids. Once we get through fermentation then we're going to start looking at things alcohol content." After that they're looking for sulfur dioxide content, the main preservative to keep wine from spoiling. Finally the testing has to confirm alcohol content in line with federal regulations. The Idaho Wine Commission and growers put up three thousand dollars to pay for some of the lab equipment at the U of I, one of four testing centers in the US. DALGETTY "We kind of operate on demand and justification; if the demand is there we'll expand." Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott