New centre to help industry make the best wines

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Helping make the wines that consumers want

A new centre being launched at the University of Adelaide’s Waite campus today will help the wine industry address key challenges while producing the wines that consumers want and the market demands.

Supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and 12 partner organisations, the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production aims to build knowledge and technologies that will help the wine industry face the challenges of climate warming, water limitations, changing consumer preferences and increasing production costs.

Key objectives are to better manage flavour and alcohol content in Australia’s wines despite these environmental and cost pressures.

“We have a portfolio of 18 projects which together take a ‘grape to glass’, multi-faceted approach to tackling these key issues facing the industry,” says Professor Vladimir Jiranek, Professor of Oenology in the University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine and Director of the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production.

“The knowledge and technologies arising from the Centre will help the industry make the best wines that will be sought after domestically and internationally.

“We aim to underpin and enable more profitable grape-growing and winemaking while achieving the desired flavour and alcohol balance that consumers want.”

Specific targets include: viticultural practices to optimise yields of flavour-rich grapes that are not necessarily high in sugars; treatments and winemaking practices that will maintain flavour while controlling sugar and alcohol content; and working with producers and retailers to define precisely the type of wines that consumers want.

“The Centre will also strengthen links between research, industry and education and produce highly skilled PhD and postdoctoral researchers honed for working at the industry/research interface,” says Professor Jiranek.

The Centre builds on a long tradition of research and multi-agency collaboration in winemaking and viticulture at the Waite Research Precinct. The Waite accounts for 62% of the nation’s wine research capability and outputs.

The Centre is supported by the Federal Government through the ARC’s Industrial Transformation Research Program, and the Australian Grape and Wine Authority. The partners are: The Australian Wine Research Institute, BioInnovation SA, Charles Sturt University, CSIRO Plant Industry, Laffort Oenologie Australia, Lowe Wines, Memstar, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Sainsbury’s Supermarkets, South Australian Research and Development Institute, Tarac Technologies and Treasury Wine Estates Vintners.

 

Contact Details

Professor Vladimir Jiranek
Email: vladimir.jiranek@adelaide.edu.au
Professor of Oenology and Head of the Department of Wine and Food Science
School of Agriculture, Food and Wine
The University of Adelaide
Business: +61 8 8313 6651
Mobile: +61 414 775 418


Media Team
Email: media@adelaide.edu.au
Website: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/
The University of Adelaide
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