Winery trials and sensory analysis

As a full-service provider of winery trials, there is no minimum involvement from our clients other than having an initial idea or a question.

Our team will take the time to understand the purpose for your research and co-design a trial with you to meet your needs and budget.

We’re experienced working with new clients and are happy to walk you through the whole process. We’re also able to advise on additional services and analysis that might benefit your research depending on what you’re hoping to find out.

Winery Trial Options

Ingredients & Additives

We can test anything you’re curious about adding to your wine, whether it’s a new yeast, a nutrient, a fining product, or an enzyme.

As these products are almost always developed entirely overseas, we can investigate efficacy with New Zealand wines, from New Zealand grapes, grown in New Zealand conditions. The idea being “test before you invest”

Winemaking Techniques

Usually the “What” the “Where” and the “When” are nonnegotiables in a winery. The most important variable is the “How”. If you’re thinking about doing something a little or a lot differently within your winemaking process – we’re keen to explore new techniques and styles for you.

Viticulture Trials

Testing wine quality after the application of various viticultural treatments. Sprays, Pruning or Cultivation Methods – compare different treatments back-to-back in small-scale ferments with directly comparable data sets.

New Technology

If you are a seller or distributor of winemaking equipment that could be used within our research winery – we’d love to talk about how we can showcase the results from your product.

As a purpose-built research winery, our small size is our greatest strength. In your average commercial winery, it’s often difficult to conduct trials due to time and tank space constraints.

We’re able remove the risk of trialling new ideas on large volumes – use kilos instead of tonnes. There’s no need to sacrifice significant production quantities or yield.

Our facility has also been designed and set up to conduct micro vinifications at scale and under rigorous conditions to provide accurate data. As such we’re able to eliminate variables that may be difficult to control or minimise in-house.

We tailor every trial to every client’s individual needs, with our winemaking team conducting each trial as a unique and independent experiment.

And as experienced research winemakers – we’re on hand to interpret findings and analysis to help with the real-world application of results.

If you are a grower or a winery with access to fruit, then ideally you would source your own fruit. If you do not have a direct contact to source fruit, we can usually assist.

Red wine trial

• For each 17L fermenter, a minimum of 25kg whole cluster or 20kg destemmed/machine harvested.

• For each 200L tank, a minimum of 190kg whole cluster or 170kg destemmed/machine harvested.

Rosé or white wine trial

• For each 17L fermenter, a minimum of 30kg whole cluster or 25kg destemmed/machine harvested.

• For each 200L tank, a minimum of 300kg whole cluster or 270kg destemmed/machine harvested.

Only if your trial requires special or specific additives. We stock and can source variety of winemaking additives including a broad selection of yeasts and nutrients.

Our receival area is equipped with a Pellenc Selectiv Process Winery S de-stemmer and a Pellenc Extractiv 2 Dynamic crusher.

If pre-crush sorting and separation is required, we also have a Diemme enologia sorting belt and vibrating table.

To press fruit, we use four small-scale Diemme Enologia Membrane Presses that operate the same software as large-scale presses found in many commercial wineries.

The performance of our presses has been optimised to deliver extraction rates comparable to industry standards.

We’re also able to receive grapes from all over New Zealand. Small parcel size requirements for trials run within our small tanks mean that logistics are simple to co-ordinate from the field to the fermenter, no matter where your vineyard is located.

Not every trial will have the same requirements and so the finished product (number of bottles) is dependent on what we receive and how much is lost to analysis along the way.

The maximum number of bottles our small ferments will yield is 20 (750ml) – Although if you don’t require that many, then we’re happy to save the excess packaging materials and freight costs.

If you’re conducting a trial within our V/C 200l tanks and want the lot as a finished product – then we can get around 250 bottles per tank.

As part of our winemaking service, standard lab analysis is provided, and we are happy to assist with interpretation.

Juice composition includes: pH, TA, YAN, L-Malic acid, Density, Extract, NTU and °Brix

Wine composition includes pH, TA, L-Malic acid, Lactic acid, Glucose, Fructose, Glycerol, Volatile Acidity, Alcohol, Total and Free SO2

When it comes to filtration, we do things a little differently to a commercial winery as the volumes we deal with are too small to use a standard crossflow.

After stabilising, our wines are filtered at bottling via pad filter down to 5.0 micron. From there we can step down as desired from 1.2, 0.6 and 0.45 micron using an inline cartridge filtration system connected to our bottling line.

Yes, you are welcome to come in and check on trial wines by appointment. When the trial is complete, we typically dispatch all wines back to clients. We are SWNZ-accredited, but are exempt under WSMP, which means you cannot export your wine for commercial reasons. All outputs belong to our clients, including both intellectual and physical property. Wine leaving our premises is excise liable to the client.

Like good wine – science takes time. We operate just like a normal winery with the bulk of our work commencing in late February to March, our trials begin to conclude with bottling, sensory analysis and report writing usually August to October.

If you have special requirements on turnaround – this can be discussed and incorporated into your trial.

Depending on your trial type, we may be able to use frozen juice. This means we’re able to conduct trials outside of the peak vintage period as well.

We are keen to discuss thoughts around how our fermenters can be utilised outside of vintage. Please contact us with your ideas

Every trial we run is bespoke and therefore costs vary depending on what we’re investigating, and the subsequent requirements and inputs.

Talk to us about what you’re looking to find out and we can co-design a trial to get the best outcome for your budget.

We offer a variety of additional analytical services to meet trial needs. Contact us for a price list.

Simply send us a message about what you’re thinking of trialling, and we’ll be in touch.