Ian Porter: LA Trobe University Researcher on the new Wine Industry Smoke Detectors

A new device is expected to save Australia’s wine producers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. 

Researchers in Melbourne have developed a smoke sensor can determine whether grapes are still salvageable after being exposed to smoke and fire.  

Wine Industry Smoke Detectors track smoke events like bushfires and burn offs around vineyards and advise winegrowers as to whether it’s likely to taint their grapes.  

LA Trobe University Researcher Ian Porter told Mike Hosking all they want is for growers to avoid the emotional and financial stress from smoke events. 

He says that in 2020, they lost $500 million worth of grapes, and they could have saved a lot if they’d had this technology. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Researchers in Melbourne have developed a smoke detection device which
could save the Australian wine industry of fortune. How's this work?
It's called wizards can determine whether the grapes are still
salvagible after smoke and fire exposure. The Trobe University research
Ian porters behind all of this and he's with us Ian.
Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Is this unique to Australia in terms of bushfires or
potentially it's global? Is this an issue in the wine
industry everywhere?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Absolutely all the temperate zones around the world could benefit
from the technology. So we hope it's adopted firstly across
Australia and it's in four states now and should expand
out and then hopefully go global.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
So the grapes are in a warehouse, you do what
this is? A probe? Is it a sniff of What
does it do?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
No, the grapes on the vines during the season. What
it does in real time is given the growers and
answer as to whether the smoke has been too much
to taint the wine that will eventually be put in
the bottle.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Is that a yes or no? Is it a number? Figure.
What is it?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
No, it is a traffic light system. So it gives green, yellow,
and red, and it lets you know whether you are okay,
whether you might need some intervention on white wines or
red wines. Yeah, and then you take it from there.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Does it do it? What? Bunch by a bunch vine
by vine row by row.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
No, you put it in a vineyard and it'll estimate
or you might have one or two or three depending
on the undulation in your vineyard, and then that will
predict across that vineyard whether the trapes are safe to
harvest or not. And save you if you've got smoke taint,
and I'll save you all the costs of netting, labor,
et cetera to harvest a crop.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Because I remember, I can't remember when, but it was
a number of years ago that a lot of people
produced wine with a smoke taint. Didn't they became a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
No? Not really. Most vineyards hate getting or wine drinkers
hate smoke taint. Although at very very low levels you've
got similar compounds to what you get through sellering. So
until they become noxious and become like an ashtray, the
wine is still palatable. But growers don't like it there.
They believe it develops in the bottle. It actually doesn't.

(02:11):
But it can become a little stronger in the first
six months and that's it. But if you know what
the levels are and use the wizard, you won't get that.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Are you guys at try clipping the ticket? Do you
run that sort of operation where you invent something and
you get commercial gain from.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It, none whatsoever. We've sent it out to a commercial
company to market. All we want is growers to avoid
the emotional and financial stress from what happens when they
get smoke around, and that's from bushfires about every five
years in Australia, and we want to make sure that
they benefit from that. In two twenty they lost five

(02:47):
hundred million dollars worth of grapes and they could have
saved a loss if that had this technology.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Fantastic, go well with it. I appreciate it very much.
I think it is two twenty. I know disagree with me,
but two I think it was in say five years
ago some people I think it was arth Australia produced
wine and people went there's something not right there and
they concluded it had something to do with the smoke.
I reason I asked about the commercial side of it.
That's what Luxeon wants to do here with science. If
you invent something good here, there's commercial applications to be had,

(03:15):
and that's the sort of direction we need to be
hitting in. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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