Would having easy to obtain, objective color data be helpful to your winemaking process?
Color is an extremely impactful parameter of wine - it makes an impression before the wine has even been tasted! While it is always important to evaluate a wine with your own eyes and tongue, having supplemental objective data can be helpful in creating consensus and backing up sensory evaluations. Giving attention to wine color allows for better control by opening up the possibility of setting color targets and evaluating when they have been achieved, both within and between harvests. It also provides more information about crush and production methods, as well as color stability during the life of a wine.
The old school method for measuring color involves using a spectrophotometer to measure absorbance at 420, 520 and 620 nm. These three values can be used to calculate color density, intensity, hue, and shade. Using this method is a great start, but is inherently limited due to the utilization of only three wavelengths. Sometimes wines that look different to the eye can show similar absorbance at these wavelengths.
CIELab color analysis is an updated option for measuring wine color. It involves measuring absorbance at 80 wavelengths, from 380 to 780 nm in 5 nm steps. The result is the entire visible spectrum is included in the measurement, and therefore is a more accurate representation of human vision. These results can be easily represented graphically to show the differences in color between samples. CIELab is the type 1 reference method for the OIV for measuring wine color.
Are you interested in adding color measurement capability to your cellar lab? The Smart Analysis from Admeo is able to easily perform CIELab analysis without reagents in just a few seconds per sample! Check out for yourself how easy it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vWx_o6JUeM.
If you are considering adding color measurement to your QC program, we’d love to help. Call us at (707) 965-9577, email us at info@admeo.us or visit our website at http://www.admeo.us!