Decanter World Wine Awards'The enemy' at bay: scientists crack brett gene code
- Monday 28 November 2011
The AWRI team: Dr Paul Chambers, Dr Anthony Borneman, Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Dr Chris Curtin
In what the Australian Wine Research Institute is calling a world first for Australian wine, the discovery will give winemakers a competitive advantage in managing brett, which can spoil wine with medicinal or metallic characters, the AWRI said.
‘Sequencing the brett genome, which reveals its genetic blueprint, means the Australian wine industry can future-proof its strategy against brett and the risk of spoilage,’ AWRI managing director Professor Sakkie Pretorius said.
Describing brett as ‘the enemy’, Dr Chris Curtin, the lead AWRI researcher on the Brett genomics project, said they could now investigate the potential for brett to develop a ‘super strain’ that would be resistant to sulphites, the common method for dealing with the organism.
The danger of the emergence of such a strain was one of the reasons the AWRI set out to identify the brett genome.
‘We’ve already found the most important gene responsible for sulfite tolerance in brett,’ Curtin said.
Over two decades, ‘through hard work by winemakers using research and recommendations by the AWRI’ incidence of brett spoilage has dropped by 90%, the Institute said.
Its recommendations include addressing ‘oak barrel hygiene and effective sulfite use at low dosage in combination with appropriate pH management.’
Cracking the gene code of Dekkera bruxellensis (Brettanomyces) was similar to working on ‘a giant jigsaw puzzle’, Curtin said.
‘But those long hours of painstaking work over many months delivered results. We’ve now cracked the code of 'the enemy' and we’re working on new weapons for winemakers to use against this spoilage yeast.’
The AWRI is supported by Australia’s grape growers and winemakers through their investment body, the Grape and Wine Research Development Corporation, with matching funds from the Australian Government.
Have your say!
Donn Rutkoff
December 05 04:46
Put me in the camp that says BRAVO if brett can be eliminated. Brett does not make a wine taste earthy. It makes a wine taste like brett. Brett tastes the same no matter what the host wine is. All brett wines taste like brett. And an invitation to any winery or winemaker who defend brett, how about mentioning it in your advertising, on your label, and tell your distributor and sales force and tasting room personnel to play up the brett aspect. I can wait.
PASCAL CHATONNET
December 01 08:55
That is A great News!
Dennis Grace
November 30 06:26
BRETT (from behind the arras) Oh, I am slain.
BORDEAUX O me, what hast thou done?
AWRI Nay, I know not. Is it the king?
BORDEAUX Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
AWRI A bloody deed? Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and marry with his brother.
BORDEAUX As kill a king?
AWRI Ay, lady, ’twas my word.
David Gross
November 30 00:15
I never thought of earthy complexity as a problem, but then I never took a scrub brush to a glass (or bottle) of wine to make is squeaky clean. Maybe it's the country of origin that's the problem