Smoke Taint Removal

1. Smoke Taint Removal Via Reverse Osmosis

2. Start of Smoke Taint • In June and July 2008 - 54,817 acres were destroyed throughout Mendocino County. • Fire burned for weeks without containment. • Dense smoke & poor visibility throughout Mendocino, Lake and Northern Sonoma Counties, including some areas of Napa County

3. Management Options • Unfortunately…… very little information is available • Some or lots of anecdotal information is available • Customer did various trials with other vendors and chose Winesecrets based on Service and Experience British Columbia Fire in 2003

4. Customer Case Study • Customer experimented with press fractions and Processed all affected white grapes with the following regime • White Wine Free Run - free of smoke taint: • 135 Gallons / Ton • Resulting in large amount of press wine to be processed

5. Red wine • Obviously More Difficult • Eliminating Skin Contact Not an Option • Containment • Separating press fractions and delay blending • Keep known smoke free lots separate • Wait post ML to evaluate for treatment

6. Dealing with press fractions • Ultra filtration of press wine: Experimented with 10k (MWCO) 10k: • Removed color and harsh phenolics retained varietal character • Created neutral but very useable wine Press fraction ready for RO treatment Up to 2 passes or less!!!

7. Ultra Filtration for Press Fractions

8. Molecular Wight cut-off range • Crossflow Clarification 200,000 - 500,000 • Ultrafiltration 1,000 - 200,000 • Tannin & Browning 10,000 - 200,000 • Protein Removal 10,000 - 40,000 • Decolorization 1,000 - 5,000 • Nanofiltration *** 500 - 1,000 • Loose Reverse Osmosis 200 - 400 • Reverse Osmosis 100 - 200 • *** Not allowed by TTB

9. Low Pressure Reverse Osmosis Membrane

11. Red Wine RO Treatment • Wine should be clean < 50 NTU – XF Filtration? • Processed prior to barrel aging • Red vs. White ……It’s a slower Process!! • Most challenging lots were red wines • Worst case: 10 passes on RO • Tasted at least daily/more on smaller lots • Treated enough to remove taint • Didn’t over treat, risk stripping wine

12. Empowering the CustomerOur pride & specialty ! • After the initial Start –up face and completion of UF work we trained our customer to run our equipment. • This lead to reduced cost per Gallon and more freedom in scheduling • Winesecrets trained cellar staff and managed integration of the technology into cellar production

13. Challenges when tasting your wines • Smoke characteristics carry over to next sample • Difficult to distinguish sample to sample – need a break • Slow to pick up “Post Nasal” - ST can show up 30 sec – 1 min. after tasting • Use a good control – 2006/07 • Taste in the morning…. If you can

14. Wine Analysis

15. Permeate / Carbon Filter Blind Tasting

16. Wine Samples (tasting) DNV Wine 1 Guaiacol 13 ug/L AFT Guaiacol 10 ug/L DWB Wine 2 Guaiacol 12 ug/L AFT Guaiacol 3 ug/L

17. Final conclusion regarding Smoke and Mirrors • Since 2003 we have treated so far over 1.5 Mil gallons of wine • Smoke taint removal works just fine • No re-occurrence…. Not on processed wine or in the vineyards • All vendors use RO based membrane technology • Pressure vary from 250psi to 600/700psi – depending on wine • Filter media is the key difference next to customer Service (wrong media = negative effects/stripping)