A Half-Century of Research at the World’s Largest Winery – A Personal Retrospective Arthur J. Caputi, Jr.

Sir Isaac Newton once remarked that if he Merit Award recipient of the Society, had a deep in 1951 of Dr. Ralph Celmer to the staff as a full had seen farther than other men, it was because interest in research and the potential it held to time research scientist marked the beginning of he had stood upon the shoulders of giants. While help build the winery. Fortunately Ernest Gallo the formal enology research effort at Gallo. I I certainly don’t claim to have seen farther than was of a like mind, and he told Crawford that had started working summers in the laboratory anyone else, I have certainly been privileged to he “considered research like savings. If you wait as a high school student starting in 1950, and stand upon the shoulders of giants. The shoul- until you need it, it’s already too late.” would continue to work every summer in the ders of Ernest Gallo, Julio Gallo, and Charles Ernest and Julio understood something else and research areas until I had com- Crawford were remarkably broad and strong, that would be of critical importance, not only pleted my education. During 1951 and 1952 I and they supported not only me, but hundreds to Gallo but also to the California indus- assisted Celmer on a number of projects, includ- of others as well. A look at the roster of past try as a whole. They realized that the most so- ing the construction of a small-scale continuous presidents of the ASEV will reveal almost a phisticated winemaking techniques in the world fermenter. Although continuous dozen who worked at Gallo at one time or an- could not produce a superior wine from inferior offered some theoretical advantages and Soviet other. It would be impossible to be surrounded grapes. The early table they bottled came researchers had published on the technique, we by individuals of such talent and ability and not from Napa and Sonoma, and were of excellent did not find it to be practical in our application. to have learned something. quality. However, if their dreams and plans A good deal of work was also carried out on It was as a fifteen-year-old high school stu- to become the world’s largest winery were to accelerated aging of dessert wines using oak dent with an interest in chemistry that I first be realized, table wine grapes of good qual- chips, contact with granulated cork, controlled stepped into the small laboratory of the E. & J. ity would have to be available from the Cen- oxidation at very low levels of addition, and nu- Gallo Winery in June 1950. Although the facili- tral Valley as well. The grape acreage that had merous other techniques. ties were relatively modest and primarily dedi- survived Prohibition in this area was generally In the summer of 1953, having completed cated to winemaking and analyses, Charles M. less than ideal for table wine production. The my first year at UC, Crawford asked me to look Crawford and R.B. “Brad” Webb had already Thompson Seedless variety was very popular at improving some of our analytical methods. instituted a small research program. Displayed with Central Valley growers because it could be It is axiomatic that it is imperative to be able to prominently on a wall was a floor plan for a new used for table grapes, raisins, or dessert wine. It measure the effect of changes that are made by and expanded laboratory that would provide ad- was clearly not suitable for any kind of quality any kind of process if that process is to be prop- ditional space for research work. The die had white table wine. A similar situation existed for erly utilized. Charles understood the need to already been cast. When they founded the com- many red varieties that were not appropriate for improve the scope, accuracy, and speed of our pany, Ernest and Julio Gallo had determined that good quality table wines. Despite the fact that analyses to provide our winemakers with more they would build the largest winery in the world dessert wines had commanded the greatest part and better information upon which to make key and they understood that technology would play of the wine market after prohibition, the Gallos decisions. Like everyone else, we had been ana- a pivotal role in that endeavor. Much of the tech- knew that the real future lay with table wines, lyzing titratable acidity by titrating wine sam- nological expertise that had existed in the wine and they planned accordingly. ples in freshly boiled (and still extremely hot) industry prior to 1920 was lost during Prohibi- In the early 1940’s the Gallos purchased 160 distilled water to a phenolphthalein endpoint. tion, and precious little research had been done acres near Livingston; this was the first parcel Direct reading analog pH meters had only re- in viticulture and enology in the United States of what would ultimately become a 5,000 acre cently become available, and I saw no reason from 1920 to 1933. The hiring of Charles Craw- ranch, of which 4,000 acres are now in vine- why such a device could not be employed for ford in 1942 was the first step in building the yards. In 1946 a portion of that vineyard was set this very common and necessary analysis. I also kind of scientific capabilities the Gallos knew aside for the evaluation of various grape variet- adjusted the normality of the titrant so that the would be necessary if their dream were to be- ies. More than 400 selections were planted and result could be read directly from the burette come a reality. Crawford had graduated from the experimental wines were made from each of the without the need for further calculation. By University of California, Berkeley, in the same varieties for a number of years. Those that had implementing this technique we achieved not class as a number of other individuals who would acceptable viticultural characteristics and pro- only faster and easier analyses, but much more be technological leaders of the wine industry in duced better wines in that region than the then accurate ones as well. Over the course of that the post WWII years. These included Louis M. available varieties were propagated. But hav- summer and the next several, I implemented the Martini, Myron Nightingale, Ze’ev Halperin, ing identified more suitable varieties, the task use of the microdichromate method for alcohol and Aram Ohanesian. Until the viticulture and of convincing growers to graft over their poorer analysis, developed rapid procedures for alde- enology program at U.C. Davis became firmly quality grapes was formidable indeed. It was hyde and fusel oil analyses, a rapid reducing established, the Food Science program at Berke- only finally accomplished in 1967 by guarantee- test for use in our fermenter laboratory ley was the training ground for many scientists ing growers a minimum price for these grapes and a multitude of others. Development of new who would ultimately go into the wine business. and contracts of ten to fifteen years. But the re- analytical methods has continued to this day, Crawford, a Charter Member, Past President and search that had been done for twenty years on and many of the procedures we devised have selecting the best grape varieties for the Central been published over the last 45 years or so. Valley was now going to pay dividends. This Maynard A. Amerine had been a classmate experimental work was the beginning of an ac- of Ernest and Julio at Modesto High School. He ASEV is not responsible for statements or opinions tive viticultural research program that contin- would obtain his Ph.D. and go on to become, printed herein; they represent the views of the author ues, in a greatly expanded form, to this day. along with Albert Winkler, one of the pivotal and are not binding on the ASEV as a whole. Although Crawford and the small group of figures in the Department of Viticulture and Copyright © 2000 by American Society for Enology winemakers carried out a number of applied re- Enology at the University of California, Davis. and Viticulture. All rights reserved. search projects as time permitted, the addition The faculty and staff that were assembled in that department laid the foundation for several gen- chitectural firms and contractors to produce the later to provide additional tools for winemakers erations of winemakers and viticulturists that final structure. It was, by our current standards, in treating certain wines. Karl Popper became were necessary to rebuild an industry that had rather modest, but it provided us the basic space the resident expert on these processes and de- been devastated by Prohibition. The department and equipment needed to move our research to veloped a substantial number of variations on was built upon people like Amerine (who would the next level. the basic technology. remain a lifelong friend of Ernest Gallo), Win- Ralph Celmer had left at this point, but Lew- For wineries bottling wines with small kler, Harold “Hod” Berg, James Guymon, A. is Stern (an early ASE officer) had joined the amounts of residual sugar, pasteurization was D. Webb, Vernon Singleton, Cornelius Ough, company as the chief table wine maker in the commonly used to keep wines from undergo- Lloyd Lider, Mark Kliewer, Curt Alley, Amand mid-1950s as had Dimitri Tchelistcheff, who ing fermentation in the bottle. This heating pro- Kasimatis, Harold Olmo, George Marsh, James wore several hats, working as an enologist and cess inevitably had a deleterious effect on the Cook, Hank Nelson, Ralph Kunkee, and others. in research developing new products in particu- product, and the industry had been in search of They initiated wideranging research programs lar. Celmer had developed Thunderbird, our first a viable alternative. Sterile filtration was being and designed and taught courses that were re- flavored special natural wine, and Tchelistcheff used by several wineries employing asbestos sponsible for educating an enormous percent- would produce a number of others. sheets in plate and frame filters, but the process age of the professionals in the wine and grape Stern was concerned about oxidation of our was cumbersome and fraught with peril from industries in the second half of the twentieth table wines, especially the whites and asked B. a microbiological standpoint. Thoukis became century. J. Williams, a microbiologist new to the com- aware of the fact that some compa- These individuals did not operate in academ- pany, and me to find a solution. Williams and nies were using membrane filtration to achieve ic isolation or from a purely theoretical stand- I were able to locate ceramic diffusion tubes a sterile product and thought it might have an point. A number had previous industrial experi- that could be attached to the end of a length application in the wine industry. A project was ence, and all worked closely with the industry of plastic tubing that would reach to the bot- set up in 1960 in conjunction with the Millipore they were dedicated to improving. Much of the tom of a bottling tank. When hooked to a cyl- Corporation to apply this technology to our early research that came out of the department inder of nitrogen, a stream of minute bubbles wine process, and by 1961 all of the pasteur- was focused on solving the numerous practical would sparge dissolved oxygen from the wine. izers had been replaced with membrane filters. problems that were plaguing the industry. The Of course it was then necessary to measure the This resulted in another significant improve- evaluation of various grape varieties and root- amount of dissolved oxygen to remove only the ment in product quality. stocks for optimum performance in different amount necessary and to avoid stripping desir- In 1961 Cornelius Ough and John Ingraham areas of California became an important ele- able volatile compounds from the wine. Al- had published a paper on the use of diethyl py- ment of the department’s work, as did Olmo’s though the dichloroindophenol titration used to rocarbonate (DEPC) as a possible bottled wine efforts in breeding new varieties that offered measure dissolved oxygen in water was tried, it sterilizing agent. This material rapidly decom- valuable characteristics for certain regions and was cumbersome and incapable of the accuracy poses to and after addi- wine styles. The department educated the indus- we wanted. I was able to use a dropping mer- tion to wine and it has no effect on the sensory try about the importance of proper sanitation cury polarographic procedure for this measure- properties of the product. Thoukis, Ueda, and procedures and the need for proper materials ment and this enabled us to expand our use of I followed the decomposition rate using radio- of construction to avoid product contamination oxygen removal to include carefully controlled actively labeled DEPC and showed that over with various trace materials or microorganisms. nitrogen stripping when transferring sensitive 98% of the compound hydrolyzed to ethanol

The effects of numerous factors on fermenta- wines within the winery and from our Fresno and CO2. Most of the remaining by-products tion characteristics and wine composition were facility to Modesto. A few years later the first could be accounted for as ethyl carbonate and studied in detail, and the results immediately Clark one-piece polarographic electrode be- carbomethoxy derivatives, within experimental made available to the industry. Amerine’s work came available, and we published a paper on its error. Since only 100 mg/L or so of DEPC was laid the foundation for the sophisticated sensory use for the measurement of dissolved oxygen in needed to achieve sterility in properly filtered analysis used in the industry today. wine. It has since become the standard analyti- wine, it was the perfect complement to mem- The industry also benefited enormously cal tool for this measurement in the industry. brane filtration if added just before the bottle from a somewhat smaller but very vigorous vi- The principles of gas chromatography were was filled. We had long ago found fermenta- ticulture and enology program at (then) Fresno just reaching the hands of analytical chemists, tions using indigenous to be unpredict- State College under the direction of the inde- but commercial instruments were not readily able, marked by variable sensory properties and fatigable Vincent Petrucci. Some of the State’s available and prohibitively expensive. I was the occasional stuck fermentation. We chose to foremost viticulturists and enologists are gradu- reasonably knowledgeable about electronics inoculate juice with selected yeast strains, but ates of that school, and many alumni of that and fairly adept with a soldering gun and other were forced to propagate yeast from a slant to institution matriculated to Davis and elsewhere tools. I was able to build a GC and, with nu- a small flask of juice and subsequently to larger for advanced degrees. merous modifications over the years, it is still vessels until a sufficient quantity was produced The technical people at Gallo always have operational today. It enabled us to separate and to properly inoculate a fermenter. Intermediate had the utmost respect for the faculties and staff quantify trace volatile compounds such as the steps included 1 liter, 5 liter, and 5 gallon con- of these institutions and sought their advice and individual fusel oil components of distilled spir- tainers of sterilized juice before preparation of a cooperation at every opportunity. The majority its and thus to improve our distillation proce- 250 gallon starter tank. This was clearly incon- of our winemakers and a large number of our dures. venient, time consuming, and expensive. research staff were, and are, products of these A new Research Director, Robert J. Bouthi- John Castor at UC, Davis, had demonstrated schools. We have continued to actively interact let was hired in 1958, shortly after the comple- a number of years earlier that wine yeast could with the research scientists at these institutions. tion of the new research lab. Bouthilet brought be produced in a 5 gallon aerated fermenter and By 1957 the time had come to expand the on board a number of new scientists including harvested as a compressed cake. At about the laboratory and build an addition devoted exclu- Dr. Richard Peterson, Karl Popper, Dr. George same time, Adams in Canada described the col- sively to research. It was decided that the plans Thoukis, and Masao Ueda, of whom the latter lection of wine yeast in the form of small filter that had been on the wall prior even to my ar- two are still with the company. The next de- cakes that could be stored frozen and later used rival were not suitable, and I was asked to de- cade would see commercialization of a num- as an inoculum for wine . Baker’s sign the new facility. This would be the first of ber of processes new to the wine industry. The yeast was being produced commercially in a three laboratories for which I would ultimately late 1950s saw a good deal of research on ion similar manner, and Thoukis was aware of this produce the specifications and work with- ar exchange, initially to achieve tartrate stability, work. He developed a joint project with Dr. ~ 2 ~ Gerald Reed of Universal Foods Corporation to When Bouthilet left the organization in 1963, to this day to evaluate new enzyme preparations produce wine yeast, first as frozen cakes then Richard Peterson and I assumed responsibility and optimize their use. With the assistance of a later as a dried product. The dried form could for the administration of the Research Depart- number of other members of staff, Wong devel- be easily transported and stored and rehydrated ment, and we prepared to move into a large new oped a cellulose fiber filtering material that was just before use. Thoukis presented a paper on facility. I worked with an architectural firm on patented and employed in our filtration process the production and use of compressed yeast at the design of a new building that would house for many years. His interest in filtration led him the 1963 ASE Annual Meeting and this material the winemaking, analytical and research depart- and his associates to explore and implement has become widely used in the industry to the ments. We moved into the new quarters in May new membrane technologies such as ultrafiltra- present day. 1969 shortly after the departure of Dick Peter- tion, nanofiltration, and crossflow filtration. As The early 1960s saw the development and son. The Engineering and Personnel Groups new materials and equipment became available, implementation of large-scale submerged cul- initially were included in the structure as well, adoption of various uses for these processes ture production of flor sherry. Although- Am but, like the Company as a whole, the labora- continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s. erine and Ough, using pressurized vessels, had tory expanded rapidly in the 1970s, and those Although wine tasting had always been an demonstrated the principle on a small scale, we departments were soon displaced. important aspect of the Company’s ongoing were able to achieve the same effect at atmo- Tchelistcheff and Popper had left about the commitment to quality, until the construction of spheric pressure in production tanks. R.L Now- time of Bouthilet’s departure as well, and we the new laboratory in 1969 we had no formal lin, our chief engineer at that time suggested the had to find new members of staff to carry on the sensory evaluation program or tasting booths. A hydrostatic head in the large tank would provide work. With the move into the new laboratory, small sensory area was incorporated in the de- adequate pressure if a proper circulation system people like Dr. Richard Morenzoni from the sign and the booths were provided with filtered was designed. The system was constructed and UCD enology program, Dr. Thomas Wong from and conditioned air and red illumination to ob- worked perfectly. This period also produced the Food Science program at UCD, and James scure differences in wine sample appearances. evidence that temperature controlled fermenta- Peck, one of Maynard Amerine’s last graduate Jim Peck, who had extensive sensory training tions produced wines of a higher quality, and students, were added to the research staff. These under Amerine, set up the first trained taste pan- enormous amounts of refrigeration capacity individuals would be key contributors to the re- els in the building as well as carrying out a vari- were added. With the increased use of stain- search done in the new building throughout the ety of other research projects. less steel tanks insulted with urethane foam, 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s. The balance of the 1970s and the 1980s were wines could now be stored at optimal tempera- Morenzoni had done his graduate work on filled with a variety of projects, many dealing tures outdoors. The traditional cellar consisting the malolactic fermentation under Ralph Kun- with regulatory requirements. New waste dis- of wood or concrete tanks in a fully enclosed kee and continued his investigation of that pro- posal techniques were developed and imple- building began to disappear. cess, but now on a commercial scale. He also mented at all corporate production sites. When With the introduction of low alcohol, lightly worked with commercial suppliers of yeast to the California Air Resources Board suggested carbonated wines, it was necessary to devise obtain various strains and select particular ones winery fermentation emissions might be the techniques to reproducibly carbonate the wines to optimize different fermentation needs. Pro- source of unwanted ozone precursors, our staff to the desired level and to analyze the CO2 con- cedures were developed and implemented to worked with other wineries through Wine Insti- tent. By generating comprehensive CO2 solubil- measure the viability of incoming shipments tute to develop important data on this issue. A ity data for various products and different tem- of dried yeast. Because many of our products great deal of experimental work was carried out peratures, we were able to achieve consistent were now being sterile bottled, it was necessary in conjunction with Professor Carlos Muller at carbon dioxide levels in bottling tanks. A num- to put into place even more stringent sanitation California State University, Fresno to substanti- ber of analytical procedures were devised, each procedures and comprehensive sampling and ate the industry’s position on the unfeasibility faster and more accurate than the previous ones. plating procedures to insure all bottled wines of mechanically controlling these emissions. Almost all were validated and published. were microbiologically stable. These were all In the late 1980s the U.S. Food and Drug During this period the first experiments with done with Morenzoni’s advice and direction, as Administration became concerned about the mechanical harvesters of our own design were was the design of the microbiological facilities presence of traces of ethyl carbamate, a suspect- conducted at the Livingston ranch. Although at all the company’s production locations. An ed carcinogen, in fermented foods and bever- some positive results were obtained, Julio enormous amount of work went into optimizing ages. A comprehensive study was initiated (that Gallo felt the resulting wine was not as good as protocols for production of fermentation start- continues to this day) in which Gallo scientists that from the same grapes that had been hand ers. His group used DNA Karyotypes to follow worked with academicians, principally C. S. picked. As a result we delayed the acceptance of the characteristics of yeast populations under Ough and Linda Bisson, to elucidate all the fac- mechanically harvested fruit until the technol- various fermentation schemes. They demon- tors involved in the formation and control of the ogy had become more refined. strated that the presence of excessive levels of traces this naturally occurring compound. The The introduction of our first Charmat -pro fluoride caused increased amounts of volatile first work implicating arginine as a precursor cess Champagne was hugely successful, and it acidity and other by-products during fermenta- for urea was done by the Gallo microbiology became necessary to produce larger quantities tion. group and brought to the attention of the Da- than our initial industry standard 2,000 gallon Most recently, this group developed micro- vis researchers who developed it further. These tanks could provide. Crawford and my father, biological “fingerprints” for the wines being efforts are typical of the kinds of interactions who headed the company’s maintenance and produced at our North Coast facility. A number that exist between the Gallo technical staff, aca- much of its engineering, had found a couple of lots of wines were made using various com- demia, and the rest of the industry. surplus 20,000 gallon liquid oxygen tanks from binations of yeast and malolactic and By the early 1990’s it became clear that the a decommissioned missile site. They felt these the resulting wines carefully evaluated. This technical needs of the organization had out- could be used as large Charmat fermenters. I has led to the current practice of using specific grown the facilities in which they were housed. was asked to perform some calculations to see yeast and malolactic bacteria combinations for Once again I was asked to draw up specifica- if we could bottle from these large vessels iso- the wines produced at that winery. tions for, and help design and staff a new re- barically without losing any significant CO2 Wong brought a strong background in en- search building. It was based upon an organiza- content. The calculations were favorable and zymology, and he immediately went about tional structure that seemed logical at that time, the tanks were acquired, installed by my father, identifying enzyme preparations that could but would be entirely modular in concept so and performed flawlessly. Additional tanks of improve juice yield, wine filterability, and op- that it could easily be modified when the need the same and even larger size were later added. timum color characteristics. He has continued arose. A chemistry group, then under Dr. Jeff ~ 3 ~ McCord and now directed by Dr. Tim Ryan, grape, which affects grape production around the of how flavor compounds interact and change was charged with the responsibility of investi- world. In grape, the disease is caused by a fun- their sensory properties with changes in con- gating the volatile and non-volatile components gus known as Eutypa lata. The group obtained centration have been invaluable in this area of of wine and establishing the sensory effect of and collected 116 isolates of Eutypa species research. each, singly and in combination. A portion of from grape, cultivated species, and native tree The group that ties all of these efforts to- this group would develop both specialized anal- species. They used Amplified Fragment Length gether is the Sensory Department headed by yses as well as automated routine procedures Polymorphism (AFLP) to produce genetic fin- Dr. Isabelle Lesschaeve. Ten tasting booths are for the Analytical Department. A number of gerprints of each isolate and analyzed specific equipped with computers that are, in turn, linked robotic procedures have been implemented for regions of DNA sequence from each isolate. The to a central server utilizing specialized sensory common analyses and capillary electrophoresis results indicate that there are two species, Eutypa software. Additional statistical software permits methods have been developed for the analysis lata and Eutypa armeniacae, capable of causing the construction of preference maps, PCA plots, of proteins, organic acids, specific amino acids, this disease. Of equal importance is the finding spider web diagrams, and numerous other rep- and numerous inorganic ions. that both of these species of Eutypa can grow resentations of statistically analyzed sensory re- A microbiology function was incorporated on many of the native tree species in California. sults. The group can provide difference testing, to supplement the existing group and provide This means there is always a ready source of in- preference evaluations, coordination with mar- additional research capabilities for this critical oculum to further the spread of the disease. In keting consumer testing, and other services. aspect of the winemaking process. It has since addition, information from the DNA sequence The small scale research winery that had been merged with the Genetics team to form a analysis from this research was used to generate existed in various forms since the 1950s was Life Sciences Group led by Dr. Nancy Irelan. diagnostic tools for Eutypa. A Polymerase Chain completely refurbished. It was equipped with A major thrust has been the physiological char- Reaction (PCR) based method was developed small stainless steel tanks, many of which are acterization of wine microorganisms using the that allows detection of Eutypa in woody vine jacketed and can be accurately temperature BIOLOG microplate system that measures the material long before symptoms appear. This tool controlled by the circulation of chilled glycol. growth of microorganisms on various carbon enables researchers to investigate the growth A computer controls and monitors the status of sources. The pattern of growth is compared to of the fungus in the vine and enables a better these tanks. Small-scale bladder presses operate the patterns of type strains in the database and understanding of the disease process. This diag- under microprocessor control and can simulate the degree of similarity calculated. We have nostic method has been patented worldwide, and the effects of full size devices. Over 500 experi- constructed our own custom databases of wine is currently being made available to academic mental fermentations have been conducted in microorganisms including Saccharomyces cer- researchers free of charge. the research winery in a single year. The wines evisiae, Hanseniaspora (Kloeckera), and sev- Some of the initial research within the Ge- produced in this facility permit us to evaluate eral others. These databases are being used to netics program involved investigating the ge- various viticultural and winemaking possibili- build up a picture of the microbial ecology of netic diversity between a number of Vitis sp., ties. An adjacent pilot plant provides the neces- wine fermentations at Gallo, which will hope- representing native species from North Amer- sary environment and equipment for the process fully lead to a better understanding of the pro- ica, as well as other species from around the development group to explore new technologies cess. A member of the group, Dr. Roy Thornton, world. Wild Vitis species contain a wealth of or transfer techniques that have been effective in has a strong background in classical breeding germplasm that is a potential source of genetic other industries and might work for our needs. techniques and has used these techniques to im- material for improving existing cultivated spe- The research effort that had begun with a prove the winemaking properties of one of our cies of grape. Breeders have used this genetic handful of people performing experiments when preferred wine yeast strains. The group has col- material via classical methods to develop root- time permitted has now grown to a staff of over lected over 70 Dekkera (Brettanomyces) strains stocks resistant to Phylloxera, and nematodes. 60 people, including post-doctoral appointees, from California and around the world. They In addition, rootstocks have been developed interns, and trainees. Virtually all of the major were characterized by BIOLOG were found that perform well over a wide range of soil and scientific disciplines are encompassed within to separate into several distinct physiological climatic conditions. A detailed understanding the Research and Technical Services Depart- groups with a wide range of physiological/bio- of the genetic diversity, or relatedness between ment. Scientists have been recruited from all chemical activities. the wild species is an important starting point over the world to assist in this effort that is now A Molecular Biology/Genetics Group was to utilizing this resource in a more specific and directed by Dr. Terry Lee, who joined the orga- included to study both plants and microor- efficient manner. In our laboratories AFLP was nization after a distinguished career heading the ganisms at the molecular level. A number of used to analyze 66 Vitis accessions represent- Australian Wine Research Institute. All of the achievements have already occurred in the area ing 18 wild species of grape and compared with parts appear to be in place to move the research of molecular diagnostics for vineyard, wine, Vitis vinifera. This was the first time this tech- effort at the E. and J. Gallo Winery to the next and juice related microorganisms. The team has nique had been used to analyze a diverse group level of excellence and to help fulfill the vision developed robust, rapid, PCR-based, plus-or- of Vitis species. The results of this research of the Company’s founders. minus molecular identification tests for a wide were presented at the Sixth International Plant As I put this presentation together, so many range of vineyard pathogens and wine , and Animal Genome Conference in 1997. The names came flooding back to me – Emil Mrak, such as Eutypa, Botrytis, Brettanomyces, Zy- genetic relationships observed in our analysis Maynard Joslyn, Rose Marie Pangborn, Walt gosaccharomyces, and Torulaspora, to name agree with the current taxonomy and indicate Jennings and dozens of others. Some of the only a few. Tests for 6 vineyard pathogens have Vitis vinifera is genetically distinct from both people I have mentioned in this address may been patented, and tests for 13 yeast species the North American and Asian grape species. In not be familiar to the younger enologists and are patent-pending. Because the tests are rapid, addition, we were able to identify three major viticulturists in the audience or may just be easy to perform, and produce plus-or-minus re- groups of Vitis species that will be useful in fur- names in old publications they have seen in the sults, any technician can easily be trained to use ther investigations. literature. Many have retired; many more are no them and interpret the outcome. The tests have A professional flavorist, Leslie Norris, was longer with us. But they were the pioneers who already been successfully transferred to produc- added to the mix to not only work with the worked, often in anonymity, to lay the founda- tion microbiology laboratories in several loca- Product Development Department, but with tion for the industry we know today. These peo- tions, and implementation of the technology is the Chemistry group to determine if the vari- ple and their work helped shape my career, and, continuing. ous compounds they had identified as having whether you realize it or not, they have helped The team working on plant genetics has ex- sensory impact really were responsible for im- shape yours. tensively studied Eutypa, a dieback disease of portant tastes and aromas. Her understanding • Presented June 20, 2000 ~ 4 ~