Point of controversy: yeasts!
Jamie Goode, a British wine writer, argues in Wines & Vines that “the next battleground in the wine world will be the controversial use of genetically modified yeasts.”
I disagree. American wine consumers won’t care about genetically modified yeasts in the next five years or more.
I wish they did. It’s hard enough to get wine consumers to care about a lot of winery practices such as watering back, reverse osmosis, micro-oxygenation or wood chips. But indigenous yeasts versus commercial yeasts? Sadly, it’s a non-starter.
GM yeasts could spark popular interest but it’s doubtful. Americans eat GM corn and GM soybeans while Europeans generally reject them. Sure, there’s a growing number of organic choices in supermarkets now but a huge backlash against GM has not hit these shores. In part, that’s because GM is confusing.
One confusing aspect is the National Organic Program and how it applies to wine. I’ll elaborate in a future post. For now, suffice it to say that the protocol allow a wine to state “made with organically grown grapes” even if that’s only 70 percent true. And it makes no mention of using GM yeasts. As Goode points out, one such yeast strain, the ML01 is now commercially and legally available in the US.
The most likely way that American wine consumers would care about GM yeasts is if foreign consumers care first. If wine consumers in the UK or Australia or New Zealand were successful in getting some wording about GM yeasts on labels, and somehow those labels made it to the US, American consumers would start asking questions. But that’s a big if.
Goode may be right in calling for a ban on GM yeasts. But I don’t see the political will in America to achieve it.
tags: wine | yeast | jamie goode | genetic modification
On October 23rd, 2006 at 2:53 am ,Bertrand wrote:
Thank’s, Drvino, for telling readers about this side of winemaking!
The wine industry and its commercial media are very discreet on selected yeasts (not only GMO ones) and on the various additives that are incresingly added to the wine to enhance its taste or sculpt it at will.I wonder why this silence, aren’t they proud of these winemaking practices?….:)
That’s where wine blogs have a role to play. There’s a brisk business going on between biotech-laboratories and hundreds of wineries, and both groups would prefer to keep the thing behind the scene.
I’ll write something about it in the next weeks at wineterroirs.