Sustainable Winegrowing

Since the year 2000, wineries in the United States have grown from 2,000 to nearly 12,000. How can a brand stand out in the market? Dan McCole, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University researches the impact of tourism on communities. He studied what makes brands that make the majority of their sales in the tasting room successful in new wine regions including Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dan shares tips on how to sell new hybrid varieties, what messaging has the biggest impact on sales, and what customers are really coming to the tasting room for (it's not wine!). Resources:         222: How Sustainability Sells in a Tough Market | Marketing Tip Monday 246: 3 Ways to Make Your Tasting an Experience | Marketing Tip Monday Dan McCcole Exploring Winery Visitors in the Emerging Wine Regions of the North Central United States Market research reveals why consumers are drawn to wineries in Michigan Survey of Wineries and Non-winery Tourism Businesses in 25 Emerging Wine Regions The impact of different product messages on wine tourists' willingness to pay: A non-hypothetical experiment Understanding winery visitors  Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Since the year 2000, wineries in the United States have grown from 2000 to nearly 12, 000. How can a brand stand out in the market? Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, Executive Director, Since 1994, Vineyard Team has brought you the latest science based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both infield and online education so that you can grow your business. [00:00:37] Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years. [00:00:41] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, Critical Resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates, with a longtime SIP certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery, speaks with Dan McCole, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. [00:01:00] Dan researches the impact of tourism on communities. He studied what makes brands that make the majority of their sales in the tasting room successful in new wine regions, including Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. [00:01:15] Dan shares tips on how to sell new hybrid varieties. What messaging has the biggest impact on sales and what customers are really coming to the tasting room for hint It's not wine [00:01:28] want to be more connected with the viticulture industry, but don't know where to start become a vineyard team member Get access to the latest science based practices experts growers and wine industry tools through both infield and online Education so that you can grow your business Visit vineyardteam. org and choose grower or business to join the community today. Now let's listen in. [00:01:52] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Dan McCole. He is an associate professor in the department of community sustainability at Michigan state university. And today we're going to talk about some lesser known smaller wine regions and the challenges of marketing hybrid wine grape varieties to customers and some successes. [00:02:08] So thanks for being on the podcast, Dan. [00:02:10] Dan McCole: I'm happy to be here, Craig. [00:02:12] Craig Macmillan: Before we, we get talking about wine in particular I'd like to kind of get oriented in your larger focus. You've done a lot of work in the world of natural resources and ag based tourism contributing to community sustainability. And I think that that's a really interesting topic just in general. [00:02:28] Can you tell me a little bit about your work just in the broad scheme and kind of what kinds of things you're interested in [00:02:33] Dan McCole: Yeah, sure. It's funny, I actually got into wine. I'm really a tourism scholar. And shortly after I arrived at Michigan State University, I was pulled into a project, that was looking at specifically at tourism. It was part of a larger project that looked at cold hardy wine varieties. So cold hardy hybrids. [00:02:55] And there was a team of viticulturalists and enologists and economists. And I was sort of brought in there, for the business portion of the team specifically looking at tourism, but that also some consumer behavior questions that we had on that as part of that project. My focus within tourism is the impact of tourism on communities specifically. [00:03:15] I'm not a hospitality guy. I look at the impact of tourism on communities. And so, you know, especially in areas like where I live in Michigan the industrial Midwest where, you know, the economy is shifting a bit. You have these places that sort of former manufacturing areas, former extraction areas for like lumber and coal and things like that. [00:03:36] They're looking to new industries and tourism is a big part of it. And so we look at all the impacts on those communities, both positive and negative. We look at economic impacts, sociocultural impacts and environmental impacts. [00:03:47] Craig Macmillan: it's exciting to see the growth in wine industries throughout the United States. I think that it's fascinating and it's only going to continue. In my opinion, I think we're going to see more of this, but again, then you're selling wines that are not commonly known. You're using the Frontenac one example. Marquette in particular was a variety that you had done some special work on. Tell me a little bit about what you did around that. [00:04:12] Dan McCole: Just to echo what you're saying. First of all, about the growth in, in the number of wineries is crazy. In the year 2000, I think the U S had 2000 wineries. Now we're up to almost 12,000. That's just crazy growth. So it's not only interesting, it's just fascinating. And. A lot of that growth has happened outside of the traditional wine areas in the West Coast. [00:04:30] It's happened, you know, in places like where I live in Michigan, but Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, you know, Virginia, everywhere. And that to me is quite interesting because a lot of these wineries are, they're pretty small. And they sell a lot of their wine out of the tasting room which makes it a tourism product really, because they have to drive visitors to their tasting room. [00:04:52] So that's, that's what got my interest. But in a lot of these areas, you can't necessarily grow the traditional wines that you can out in California, for instance, in the central valley or, you know, Napa, Sonoma. Here in Michigan, we do have some areas where you can go vernifera and mostly, you know, like German varietal, the Riesling is, is quite good here, you know, cool, cool temps, but they're really in small microclimates, but a lot of the areas I tend to work in, they rely on, you know, hybrid grapes, wine grapes. [00:05:22] And, you know, these have just developed over the last 20 years, a lot of them or, you know, some of them are a little bit older but some of them are quite new, including Marquette, which is probably, You know, 15, 16, 17 years old since it was developed at University of Minnesota. And that wine in particular is quite interesting because when you're talking about, especially up here in the North where I work and with a lot of the wineries I'm at, they can do okay with white wines, but red wine has always been a bit of a challenge. [00:05:48] And so Marquette comes along and it's pretty promising wine for making, you know, red wine. So everybody was pretty excited about it. We wanted to know a little bit more about what you tell consumers that will impact their interest in a wine. In academia, we talk about this concept called willingness to pay or valuation. [00:06:09] Essentially what we're talking about is, how much does a product mean to somebody? And that they're willing to buy and how much are they willing to buy it for? So we did these interesting studies with Marquette looking at what can you tell somebody about this grape? That will increase their valuation of it because when we were talking to wineries, you know We'd ask them like what do you tell them about Marquette? And they said, well, you know, we tell them this and that. And as we had these conversations with a number of wineries, we could pretty much break down what they told about this grape into three categories. [00:06:42] One was sort of these sensory descriptions, medium bodied wine, grandson of Pinot Noir and, with hints of, and flavors of such and such [00:06:54] another category of information that they were talking about was, the local message, you know, everybody's into locally produced, locally you know, grown local, local, local. They talked about how the Marquette grape was developed sort of locally specifically for these environments. It doesn't require as many agricultural inputs you know, to be able to grow here. It, Helps local wineries to produce these kind of wines, et cetera, very local, local, local message. [00:07:23] And then the third thing was they talked about how wines made with Marquette grapes had won competitions at international wine competitions. And so, you know, that was one of the things they told about them. And so we wanted to know, like of those messages, does anyone have. A little bit more bang [00:07:38] Craig Macmillan: Right, right. [00:07:39] Dan McCole: you know, that you have, and, and, you know, that could be communicated on the label or in the tasting room or in tasting notes or whatever. [00:07:46] So, you know, essentially we did this complicated experiment and which is, you know, a whole other story on its own, but but it was kind of interesting, but essentially what we found was that one of those three messages didn't really impact people's willingness to pay. One of them did a little bit. And one of them did quite a bit. [00:08:05] Craig Macmillan: I'm on the edge of my seat. [00:08:06] Dan McCole: You're on the edge of your seat. Okay. I was wondering if you wanted to have a quiz. They didn't want to pay less, but they didn't necessarily want to pay more. [00:08:13] The local message, people were willing to pay more for that, but not a lot. [00:08:17] It was the awards, and it was interesting because we had people sample four different Marquette wines, and we didn't ask them about the specific wines, we just asked questions about Marquette wines. Here are four Marquette wines, you know, so you get a sense of this grape and the wines made from it. [00:08:33] And we didn't say that these wines had won awards just that wines made with Marquette had won awards. But that made people pay a willingness to pay a lot more. [00:08:41] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. [00:08:43] Dan McCole: And, and I think that has something to do with wine itself as a product. Part of our other research shows that, you know, The people who tend to go to tasting rooms in these emerging areas don't necessarily have the same level of wine knowledge or wine experience or wine purchase behavior. [00:08:58] And so they might be looking a little bit more toward people who are experts in this to tip them as to if they should like this or not. I mean, we're all kind of like that with, with wine, the points and things like that, you know, let's see what a, an expert tells us. And we're influenced by that. [00:09:15] Craig Macmillan: That is interesting. It just made me think of diffusion of innovation, you know, where you have some folks that would be like, Oh, Marquette's delicious, fantastic, I want it. And then there's another population that's like, Well, let's, is it? If other people are indicating that it's good and that they like it, which is communicated through points in this case, then that opens the door. [00:09:35] And then maybe you get some more momentum after that, some more momentum after that, momentum after that, you know, and wine regions have kind of developed along that same. Principle, the sense of place piece is also kind of interesting because a lot of wineries, I think are really focused on conveying these wines are a sense of place. [00:09:52] And I was expecting that to be a real motivator because these are special places with special wines. But not necessarily. [00:10:02] Dan McCole: Well, yeah, you know, wine more than probably any other product at least beverage is, so tied to the terroir, right? If you're thinking about a wine in Michigan or Iowa or, Missouri and you know, a little bit something about wine, you'd say, Oh, those aren't really wine areas. Are they? [00:10:22] And you might be a little skeptical. Whereas, you know, if you're talking about, Oh, this wine is made in Italy or France or Chile or, California or, Australia, wherever people say, Oh, yeah, they make good wines there. Right? This tie to the terroir in the area is true. But think about like, yeah. craft beers. People don't really give it the same level of scrutiny where it's made from. If you go to you know, a place, I mean, we just don't have the connection, you know, Germany or Czech or, you know, places are known for certain kinds of beer, but you're not necessarily skeptical about a beer made in Iowa or Missouri or Michigan or, wherever. [00:10:58] Same thing with spirits. We've seen a lot of craft distilleries coming around , and people think that's cool, . But wine, they're still a little suspicious of really. Could we really have a good wine made in this location or that location? So that sense of place is interesting. So I think with the, experiments we did, it was really that the reason there was a little bit of an increase, I think, is just people for. Mostly environmental reasons but you know, some other reasons to support local business you know, latched on to that local message. And we're willing to pay a little bit more for that, but not a lot more. [00:11:30] Craig Macmillan: Right. And if I remember correctly the environmental aspects of this did play at least a little bit of a role [00:11:37] Dan McCole: that that's exactly right. That is something that wineries do communicate about the wines especially made with hybrid wine grapes. I mean, first of all, the, the term hybrid grape is something that the industry uses and people like you and I might use but the average consumer doesn't know what that means. [00:11:53] The average consumer doesn't know what Vitis vinifera is. They've maybe heard of grapes, but, you know, if you ask them if they've heard of Cabernet Sauvignon or Marquette, they might say, Oh, I've heard of Cabernet Sauvignon, and if they're from certain areas where Marquette is grown, they might say, Oh, yeah, I've heard of that too, to a lesser extent, but they're not gonna know that one's a hybrid grape and one's not. [00:12:13] And even if you were told, they wouldn't know what that means. Cabernet Sauvignon sounds like a hybrid. Between Cabernet and Sauvignon, right? So, like, they don't really make that distinction as much as the industry does. [00:12:25] Craig Macmillan: Are there other varieties in the upper Midwest that have the same kind of potential, do you think? [00:12:31] Dan McCole: There are several that people are interested. You mentioned Frontenac before. Frontenac's been around for a while and it's another one that makes a red wine. Petite Pearl is sort of another one that's a little newer than Marquette, which has some promise. [00:12:45] On the white you have which has also been around for a little bit and you know, Brianna and La Crescent and, and some of those essentially what they do is allow for this growth that we've seen in areas where it was previously not feasible to, produce wine. [00:13:02] People are ever going to get to the point where they prefer a Marquette over a Cabernet Sauvignon, I mean, some people do but in large numbers that could be a while. And it may never happen. To me, a lot of these wineries and these areas. They're, they're smaller wineries that sell most of what they produce out of their tasting room. [00:13:24] And that's a pretty good model for them because when you're producing such a small amount of wine, the production cost per bottle is pretty high, so just to break even you might need to, you know, sell it at 15, 16, 17 dollars a bottle. If you want a little bit of a margin, you're going for 25 dollars. [00:13:44] Now if you're in a wine shop And you have the choice between, a $25 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon or, go with something else like a you know, a Pinot Noir or something, and a $25 bottle of Marquette. It's gonna be hard for that Marquette to compete. [00:14:03] Plus the winery's gonna have to pay the, middleman, the distributor and the retailer. They're cut too. Selling it out of the tasting room makes a lot of sense when it's that high. You don't have the competition, you don't have to give other people their cut. , [00:14:16] what we've found in these areas is that people aren't going to the wineries for wine. [00:14:23] Our research clearly shows this. They're going for a wine based experience or wine themed experience, when we ask people why they came to the winery, the reasons given were, for a relaxing day out to socialize with somebody else to bond with friends or loved one or you know, a group of women who are getting ready and part of a bachelorette party or something. [00:14:44] And, lower down the list is to learn more about wine and lower down is to acquire wine or build my cellar or things like that. They're not going there for that purpose. They're going for an experience. [00:14:54] Now, if the experience is good and the wine is good enough, they'll buy some of that wine, again, because the context of a purchase. Makes all the difference in the world. For years, we've known this about consumer behavior, that the situation in which somebody buys something makes all the difference in their behavior, whether they're going to buy it. And we know this in the wine industry, right? Think about how much you're willing to pay for a bottle of wine at a restaurant versus at a store. [00:15:24] Because the situation is different. And our right. Our willingness to pay goes up. Our willingness to buy one product over another changes. And by like the situation I'm talking the physical surroundings make a difference. The social surroundings, who you're with you know, at the time, the temporal perspective, meaning the urgency associated with it whether you have plenty of time to shop, whether you're in a hurry, What they call the task, which is like the reason for the purchase. [00:15:49] So are you buying it for a gift? Are you bringing it to somebody's house? Are you getting it as a souvenir? And then, and this is, I think most important is something called the antecedent States. And this is like the consumers. Mood at the, at the moment of purchase, it's emotional state. And this has changed by, you know, what has happened immediately before the purchase. [00:16:11] So if you're at a winery and you know, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and. You're having a great time and you and I are there together. We're getting along real well, getting to know each other. We're having a wine. The wine's, you know, fine. It's pretty good. We talked to some other people. It's just been a great day out. The weather's been beautiful. There are beautiful views and we walked through the vineyard. We're in a good mood, and that's gonna change our purchase situation. All of those factors change the purchase situation. In some cases, the wine just has to be good enough. [00:16:44] Now, if the wine is terrible and it's really a burden to drink, we're probably not gonna buy that wine. [00:16:50] Craig Macmillan: A burden to drink. I love that. I've never heard that before. I'm going to use that in my real life. [00:16:56] Dan McCole: Have you, have you had many wines that have been a burden [00:16:59] Craig Macmillan: I I'm a judge for a home winemaking competition. So yes, many wines are a burden to drink. [00:17:05] Dan McCole: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I've had a few, but generally I've got a pretty open palate. [00:17:11] Craig Macmillan: I'm sorry. I interrupted [00:17:12] Dan McCole: if we, found these wines to be, you know, not great, then we're not going to buy them. You know, it's going to dampen our experience, if the, the wine grapes that you were asking about, if they're good enough, they're good enough. There's a market there for that. They don't need to be the next, you know, Chardonnay. [00:17:28] Craig Macmillan: Something else that you looked at that I found pretty fascinating was you look for commonalities or differences in wine consumers. I think it was in Michigan. You were connecting with people, I think at the winery And we're doing some survey work. And so I started some semi structured interview work. Is that right? [00:17:42] Dan McCole: Well, not necessarily. We have done some structured interviewing, but I think what you're talking about. So we had a program that we did for several years, both in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where we developed a system to be able to intercept people at the winery very quickly. We didn't want to disrupt their experience at the winery, just very quickly. [00:18:04] And we, we worked with wineries, they did these intercepts for us. Would you be interested in participating in a study that Michigan State's doing? If so, just give us your name and email and they will follow up with you within a week. So we got this, we worked with a number of wineries, so we, every week we would get, you know, a few hundred names and we would survey them. And we do this over, you know, a 16 week period every year. [00:18:25] Craig Macmillan: wow. [00:18:25] Dan McCole: We got in touch with a lot of people who had just taken a visit to the winery and we were able to ask a lot of different questions. One line of inquiry that we focused on was trying to get to know who are these consumers? [00:18:39] This is where we first learned that the consumers who go to a winery are different from wine consumers. They're a form of wine consumer, but they're not the same as what most of the information, the trade information available on wine consumers is because that those air mostly in a retail context. [00:18:58] That's where I told you earlier. We learned that, the visitors to wineries in these areas tended to be a little less wine knowledgeable, have a little less wine experience. Purchased a little less wine, you know, beforehand before, you know, coming to the winery and and there were also some differences state to state mostly that had to do with some spending, but some of that was explained geographically, how close the wineries were to major breweries. Population areas and things like that. [00:19:29] One interesting thing that we learned. So in, Michigan, I, I mentioned this earlier, quite a , a lot of the wineries are in areas where they will produce wines with vinifera, grapes that we've heard of before. You know, Cabernet Franc Riesling, Pinot Grigio, some Chardonnay, you know, etc. [00:19:48] And there are some wineries that that use cold, hearty grapes in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They pretty much all use these cold, hearty grapes. So we asked people, how familiar are you with cold, hearty grapes? And it was interesting in Michigan. They shared familiarity greater than the other two states. [00:20:05] But when we asked them if they'd heard of these specific grapes You know, Marquette Marichal Foch yeah, Frontenac, Gris, Frontenac Brianna, La Crescent. We made up a few names of grapes that don't exist. And in Michigan, they were just as likely to say they've heard of those made up grapes as the real grapes. [00:20:27] And in Wisconsin and Minnesota, however , they hadn't heard of those and they indicated that they've heard of the real grapes. And, and so what that told us was that if you, familiarize the consumer enough with these grapes, they'll get to know them and recognize them. And in Michigan they just hadn't because there aren't as many that use these cold hardy grapes. [00:20:47] Craig Macmillan: Oh, that's, that's really interesting. We're talking about cold hardy's equality. I've done been doing a lot of interviews with folks from places like Texas. And also the Pacific Northwest, which are both areas that are very vulnerable to climate change. And in the case of the Northwest, that still might be vinifera. But for instance, the Willamette Valley may have to rethink Pinot Noir if things continue to warm. In Texas, it's about heat, where they're having just terrible collapses of vines. And there are, you know, these heat tolerant varieties that nobody's heard of. If you were to be called in as an expert and flown to Texas, what kind of advice would you give to the extensionists at Texas A& M or to the wine marketing associations or anything like that? Based on what you've learned in the Midwest. [00:21:37] Dan McCole: I do work with some people from Texas A& M on different projects that we've been part of. So I'm a little bit familiar with their challenges, mostly they're viticulturalists they have unique challenges. The kind of things that, that I work with that really apply, even though most of my work has been done up here in the, upper Midwest and the great lakes area from the, small business perspective, they have the same challenges. [00:21:59] I would argue that in fact, I published a paper on, proposing that there are really four different kinds of wine regions. One is sort of the famous wine regions we know about. Those would be the Napa and the Sonoma or a Tuscany and other places like that Burgundy and France. They produce a lot of wine and they have good wine tourism 'cause people want to go to these regions. [00:22:22] Then we have regions that produce a lot of wine, but they don't necessarily have a whole lot of tourism. They don't rely too much on tourism. These are the bulk wine producing regions of the world. [00:22:33] Then you have lots of regions around the world. Especially you think of like Eastern Europe, they have a long tradition of winemaking, but it's really just for local consumption, right? And and so they, they sell it locally. They don't really rely on tourism. People aren't going to these regions. , you can think of Bulgaria and. You know, certain parts of Austria or, you know, wherever. [00:22:55] And then there's this newer fourth region. And these are wineries that don't have a long tradition of winemaking. These are like the wineries that have popped up all over the U. S. over the last 20 years, and they are entirely reliant on tourism. to sell their product because they're mostly selling out of the tasting room. And each one of these four regions has different business models. [00:23:16] If a winery is in an area that relies on tasting room sales, either entirely or largely and or is making wines with grapes that people are less familiar with then they have similar challenges regardless of where they're located or what those wines are called. [00:23:36] One of the things I would say is recognize that, people are there to buy an experience, not a product. And if they have a good experience, they'll buy the product. A lot of wineries I've worked with, they understand this, but they still consider themselves being in the, you know, primarily wineries and wine producers. [00:23:55] And, and they are, and you can understand why they are that way. Their consumer's primary, you know, the product they're seeking the most is not a actual tangible product. It is that experience. And so realizing that that that you are really in that experience industry just happens to be wine themed and you also produce wine and you're going to sell that wine to them that realizing why people are there and then that they're Behavior, the things that are going to change their behavior, get them to buy more wine, et cetera is going to be different from most of the information that's out there about consumers realizing that the wine consumer behavior that's out there and all the trade magazines Is mostly for people at retail and they are very different there. [00:24:40] They have a lot of commonalities And even if we're talking about the same people the situation is different and therefore their behavior is different So essentially they're a different kind of consumer, when they're there and then the last thing I would tell them is you know based on what I was telling you about the work we had done in minnesota and wisconsin is don't shy away from the name of the grape and, , just say that, and people don't care if it's hybrid or not, just push the name of that grape. So you get some recognition of it. And then people, especially if they're newer to , to wine, you know, they're gonna say, Oh, I really like this grape. I like wines are made with this grape. And, you know, they tell two friends and so on and so on. [00:25:20] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. I don't think I saw this in your writing, but obviously you have some experience with this. Are there particular things, elements that a winery that's selling this experience, types of experiences, types of things that a winery would have the most success with or things that you saw that had the most popularity or the most success? [00:25:43] Dan McCole: Yeah, we, we haven't done that work. We actually have a proposed in a grant that, hopefully will be funded coming forward. A colleague of mine at Cornell, Miguel Gomez, he did a couple interesting little experiments to, see what, generated more sales in, in one experiment, he found that essentially the, the more satisfied people were with their tasting room experience. The more wine they bought and the more money they spent on wine. So the more bottles, the more money they spent and the more bottles they purchased. And, and it was really clear. And if you could get somebody from being very satisfied to extremely satisfied, The amount of wine just jumped way up in the amount of spending. [00:26:29] So trying to get somebody extremely satisfied with their tasting room experience. So that begs the question, what leads to satisfaction experience. And what was interesting is it wasn't the quality of the wines. It was things like, crowding if it wasn't too crowded decoration, the atmosphere that was created, whether it was a nice place the service. The you know, the people serving. [00:26:54] I was at another conference where another colleague Zeta Vickers at University of Minnesota. She had done some experiments with tasting those. She was giving people wines to try and she would show them photos of people in different states of emotion. So some of them were really happy, some of them were angry, some of them were scared, some of them were sad, whatever. And she experimented with the same group of wines. And asked people to rate their level of satisfaction. And one of the things she learned was regardless of which wine followed, the wine after showing somebody who was happy, a picture of somebody who was happy, was always rated more higher than the other emotions. [00:27:34] And so the lesson that she gave from this and fits in with Miguel's work is if you're hiring somebody to work in your tasting room and you have a choice between two people, one of them is incredibly knowledgeable about wine knows everything there is to know, but isn't the most . necessarily friendly, outgoing person in the world and the other one doesn't know much about wine, but is very engaging and friendly and outgoing. Train that person about wine, hire them and train them about wine versus the wine person what Zeta said, if people are in a good mood or they see somebody in a good mood, they're more likely to be satisfied with the wine. [00:28:08] And if they're more satisfied with the wine and more satisfied with their experience, then they're, going to buy more wine. [00:28:13] Craig Macmillan: Variable I wonder about is music. [00:28:16] Dan McCole: Yeah, [00:28:17] Craig Macmillan: I'm really curious about what impact that might have. And it gets to this emotional response piece, where if people are having a good time, you see people smiling, the staff are very friendly and smiling, that encourages you to Enjoy the experience be satisfied the experience then purchase product as a result [00:28:34] Dan McCole: I would agree with that 100%. And I think that's part of being very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the tasting room experience. If there's either good live music or it doesn't even have to be that there's a, there's a little winery up here in Michigan that, in the middle of their tasting room, they have this, sort of classic Harley. [00:28:52] And the music in there is always like classic rock, and it's turned up a little bit higher than you would normally expect. And they have a great view and it's a really beautiful winery and it's looking over Lake Michigan, it's really lovely you can't go there and not have a good time, you know, it's just a lot of fun. [00:29:08] Craig Macmillan: yeah, that's interesting if there's one thing you were gonna tell folks regardless of where they were on this topic Making the sale of an unknown wine variety. What would it be? Just one idea one thing [00:29:22] Dan McCole: Well, based on the research what we told people about the awards that were won, if your wine has won awards showcase them. Let people know that that they've won awards that that really does seem to make a difference. So to the point where once we, when we had our findings, we were reporting them at a conference of winemakers and, and somebody said, I'm really glad you said that because we did win awards, but we'd already had our bottles labeled. [00:29:46] And so we were, printing off different stickers that we're applying by hand, bottle by bottle. And we were going to give up doing that, but maybe we should continue. And I said, yeah, I mean, that was the thing more than anything else. You communicate to people about the wines is that they'd won awards. [00:30:01] Because if you're talking about people who everybody feels a little inferior, not everybody. We, we all know some people who are very. You know, feel like they know everything there is to know about wine, but a lot of us are, are a little inferior about whether we know as much as we should about wine to have experts sort of say that, you know, wine more than, more than a lot of things makes a big difference. [00:30:23] And so awards are, are one of those things and enter those competitions. And, and if you win them make sure you communicate that to your consumers. [00:30:30] Craig Macmillan: That's fascinating. Where can people find out more about you? [00:30:33] Dan McCole: Well, they can go onto the, website or, or look me up, Dan McCole. You'll find some of the writings I've had on Google and there are two Dan McCalls out there. One's my dad, he's an artist in Boston. And then may just don't go for the watercolors, go for the stuff about wine. [00:30:47] Craig Macmillan: And yeah, in the show notes, there'll be links to a number of your publications, which I found fascinating. And I think other people will too. Thank you so much. Our guest today has been Dan McCole. He's associate professor in the department of community sustainability at Michigan state university. Dan, thanks for being here. This has been a really interesting conversation. [00:31:05] Dan McCole: Thanks a lot, Craig. I enjoyed talking to you. [00:31:06] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Dan, a number of his articles on market research, plus Sustainable Wine Growing Podcast episodes, 222, How Sustainability Sells in a Tough Market, and 246, Three Ways to Make Your Tasting an Experience. If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing, and leaving us a review. [00:31:34] You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam. org slash podcast. And you can reach us at podcast at vineyardteam. org until next time. This is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team.   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: It's one thing to be able to say that your grapes are grown sustainably, but to be able to explain to someone what that really means is a different story. [00:00:09] Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with Sip Certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing. [00:00:30] When it comes to telling your sustainable story, there's an easy framework that can help you. The seven values of SIP certified, which include social responsibility, water management, safe pest management, energy efficiency, habitat, business, and always evolving. [00:00:47] You can use these seven values to talk about the real ways your brand practices sustainability at every level of your business. [00:00:55] Dozens of SIP certified brands have already used this framework. In this week's marketing tip, we share the 2024 sustainable stories and invite you to be featured next year. [00:01:06] Our first value is social responsibility. Oso Libre's Por Vida Foundation supports four causes that are near and dear to the owner's hearts. Veteran services, women's cancer research, animal support groups, and children and family support groups. In fact, this year, they donated funding raised from their July Angus event to the Vineyard Team's Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship, helps children of vineyard and wine industry workers pay for a higher education. By supporting Oso Libre, guests and customers give back, too. [00:01:39] The second value is water management. At the heart of Bien Nacido Vineyard's sustainable farming ethos lies a diligent approach to water management. Their team of experienced irrigators tailor their irrigation practices to fit the land's needs by using weather data and plant and soil moisture data. [00:01:57] Our third value is safe pest management. Presqu'ile Vineyard knew they could protect their vines from birds in a way that was more sustainable than non biodegradable labor intensive bird netting. [00:02:08] Installing programmable bird lasers has protected their vineyards from feathered pests on top of having several other sustainable benefits. [00:02:17] The fourth value is energy efficiency. From a hillside nestled production facility that utilizes gravity flow to solar panels that provide the majority of the energy needs for their building and EV charging stations for customers, Niner Wine Estates reaches a high bar for energy efficiency. [00:02:36] The fifth value is habitat. The team at Ancient Peaks Winery and Margarita Adventures is dedicated to protecting the habitats of the various species of wildlife that inhabit the land and water on their property. If you want to learn more about the native life at the ranch, you can take one of several tours with naturalist Jacqueline, including nature photography, foraging, and my favorite, ziplining. [00:03:00] The sixth value is business. As a business rooted in female leadership, Cambria Estate Winery shows their dedication to uplifting and empowering women in an incredibly impactful way. Every March for Women's History Month, Cambria selects an organization that aligns with their pillars of climate action and women's leadership and pledges $25,000 to support their efforts. [00:03:26] And the seventh value is always evolving. Tolosa's Three P's Groups welcomes everyone on their team to participate in the business's value of always evolving. Employees get involved in a group, either people, planet, or prosperity, and work together to find ways to analyze and improve the business's sustainable practices. [00:03:46] If you want to read any of these incredible stories in more detail, make sure that you go to the show notes and click on the link, how these brands grow grapes sustainably. [00:03:57] If you're a SIP certified brand and want to share your sustainable story, let us know. Simply email Whitney at vineyard team. org with the value you want to share and how you fulfill that value. She will help you write your story. And we'll share it in a future marketing tips newsletter and podcast. [00:04:14] Until next time, this is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team. Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine How These Brands Grow Grapes Sustainably Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member

What causes the “red wine headache”? Is it sulfites? A histamine reaction? Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus of Enology in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis and Apramita Devi, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis have identified a flavanol that can interfere with the metabolism of alcohol. That flavanol is quercetin, a natural product made in grape skins in response to sunlight. It is a natural sunscreen produced to protect the fruit from ultraviolet light. This conversation covers why quercetin may be more prevalent in high end wines, how skin contact during wine production impacts quercetin levels, and why sulfites may play a role in “red wine headache”. Resources:         74: The Spirit of Wine Andrew Waterhouse Andrew Waterhouse | Google Scholar Andrew Waterhouse | LinkedIn Apramita Devi | LinkedIn Apramita Devi |Google Scholar Inhibition of ALDH2 by quercetin glucuronide suggests a new hypothesis to explain red wine headaches Why Do Some People Get Headaches From Drinking Red Wine?  Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: What causes. The red wine headache? Is it sulfites or a histamine reaction? [00:00:10] Welcome to sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team. Where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director. I've been your team. Since 1994, we've brought you the latest science-based practices, experts growers and wine industry tools through both infield and online education. So that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass. With us as we cheers to 30 years. [00:00:37] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, critical resource. Manager at Niner wine estates with long time sip certified. Vineyard and the first ever sip certified winery. Speaks with two university of California Davis researchers. Andrew Waterhouse. Professor emeritus of enology and the department. of, viticulture and enology. And. Oprah meta Debbie. Post-doctoral scholar and the department of viticulture and enology. [00:01:04] They have identified a flavonol that can interfere. With the metabolism of alcohol. And that flavonol is called quercetin. A natural product made in the grape skins in response. To sunlight. It's a natural sunscreen produced to protect. The fruit from ultraviolet light. This conversation covers. Why quercetin may be more prevalent in high end wines. How. Skin contact during wine production impacts quercetin levels. And why sulfites may still play a role in that red wine headache. [00:01:36] Want to be more connected with the viticulture industry. But don't know where to start become a vineyard team member. Get access. to the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry. The tools. Through both infield and online education so that you. You can grow your business. Visit vineyard team.org. And choose grower or business to join the community today. [00:01:57] Now let's listen. in. [00:02:01] Craig Macmillan: Our guests today are Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus in Enology in the Department of Viticulture Davis, and also Aparmita Devi. She is a postdoctoral scholar, also in the Department of Viticulture & Enology Davis. Thank you both for being here. [00:02:17] Andrew Waterhouse: Oh, we're glad to be here. [00:02:19] Craig Macmillan: Today we're going to talk about a really interesting topic. It's the role of quercetin , in wine headaches. The two of you recently co authored a paper on this one particular mechanism that might cause some people to get a headache after drinking even a small amount of red wine. But before we get into that, I want to ask you, how did you get interested in this topic? [00:02:37] Andrew Waterhouse: Well I've been talking to Steve Mathiasson. He's a Napa winemaker for actually quite a while, some years back. He suffers from headaches when he drinks certain wines. And we were chatting about possible mechanisms, and we even did a study many years ago with another postdoc in my lab to investigate a question we had or a theory we had, and that didn't pan out. But more recently we were chatting again, and I got interested in the topic again, and that's what got me interested, you know, just somebody knowledgeable who was suffering from headaches and. for listening. It was, it makes it more real and it's like, well, maybe we can figure something out. So that's what got us started. [00:03:17] Craig Macmillan: Apramita , how same for you. [00:03:19] Apramita Devi: Yeah. Same. Like I've been in touch with Andy and we have been talking about this project many years. So I was always interested because I come from biological science and metabolism and stuff I got interested after talking to Andy. [00:03:33] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's start with some basics. What is quercetin? [00:03:38] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, basically, it's a natural product made by grapes, but it's a very specific one. It's in the class of polyphenolic compounds, and it's in the class of flavonoids called flavonols. And what makes it interesting, I think, is that it is made By grapes, in the skin of the grape, and only in the skin of the grape, in response to sunlight. It's sometimes referred to as sunscreen for grapes. And it specifically absorbs UV light that would cause damage to, say, DNA and other macromolecules. So it's very clear that the grapes are producing this in order to protect themselves from ultraviolet light. [00:04:22] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:04:22] Andrew Waterhouse: So the amount that's present in wine is highly dependent on the amount of sunlight the grapes experience. Not the vine, but the grapes themselves, And a friend of mine, Steve Price, was the first to note this. In a study way back in the 90s on Pinot Noir, he noted that there was more quercetin in sun exposed Pinot Noir grapes. And that observation has been confirmed many times now in different studies. where sun exposure is correlated with quercetin levels. [00:04:58] Craig Macmillan: and this is true just for red grapes as opposed to white grapes. [00:05:02] Andrew Waterhouse: Oh, no, no, there's more in white grapes. But when you make white wine, you throw away the skins. So there's no opportunity to get those materials into the wine. Now, an exception might be orange wine. But I don't know of any data on orange wine. [00:05:21] Craig Macmillan: Apramita , maybe you can talk about the metabolism part, the biology part. So when people consume alcohol, it's metabolized down certain pathways. Quercetin is also metabolized by the body into other forms? [00:05:33] Apramita Devi: Yeah, so the pathway for alcohol and quercetin are a bit different, but the location is liver, where it goes. So when people consume alcohol, it goes to the liver and then there are two enzymes which work on the alcohol. So the first enzyme is alcohol dehydrogenase, which convert it into alcohol into acetaldehyde. The acetaldehyde is the like the toxic metabolite in the body and it can have many side effects. That's why body has to get rid of it out of the liver system. So it has a second enzyme which is called the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. So that convert acetaldehyde dehydrogenase into a non toxic component, which is acetate or acetic system. [00:06:24] So it comes out of the body. What happens when you consume quercetin along in the body, the quercetin also goes to the liver. Because quercetin adds too much quercetin as such is not good for the body and it has low bioavailability. So liver tag it in the form of quercetin glucuronide and then the body knows that it has to be flushed out of the system. So the interesting part is that when you consume alcohol and quercetin together, You are taking the both the metabolite acetaldehyde and quercetin gluconide in the same location inside the liver. And it gives the quercetin gluconide to interact with the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme. And that acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme now cannot work efficiently. to convert the acetaldehyde into the acetate. So basically you are building up acetaldehyde in the body and it's not coming out of the system and you are seeing all those negative effects of the acetaldehyde in the form of flushing or headache or not. The other systems like what's like sweating. so we think that there is a correlation between these two pathways, which might be associated in red wine system. [00:07:47] Craig Macmillan: And how did you design your study? [00:07:51] Apramita Devi: The first when I talked to Andy, like he told me that he thinks that this system is because of inflammatory pathways and inflammation system. So he was kind of like, there is something in red wine, which is Triggering this kind of pathways or there is some system so, but we were not sure what exactly are those inflammatory system. [00:08:16] So we went back and saw some literature and we kind of find that there are some studies which told that quercitans inhibit the dehydrogenase enzymes and that what triggered us that okay alcohol is metabolized by these dehydrogenase enzymes. And wine also has these phenolics. So what kind of phenolics, other kinds of phenolics, or what types of phenolics can do this inhibition? [00:08:45] The method was basically in, was based on having different phenolics, which are present in red wines more compared to white wines, select them. And then just, we find this enzyme kits in the market to do this dehydrogenase. Inhibition tests like you put the test compound and it tells whether the enzyme is the inhibited or not. [00:09:09] So we just did that in a test tube system, like we added our phenolics with the enzyme, and we saw that which kind of phenolics are inhibiting this enzyme and screening them out. out of all. So while doing that, we screened different types of quercetin, like quercetin glucoside, quercetin galactosides, and other forms. [00:09:32] Then we also tested other phenolics. I can for all my rest in and other stuff. And we also choose quercetin gluconide because that is the metabolite which is circulating in the body. And then we kind of screen them based on the in the enzyme system and we see how much inhibition is happening there. [00:09:54] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. So what we did was a very basic test to experiment. We didn't test anything on people. [00:10:01] We basically tested to see which of these compounds could inhibit that enzyme because we knew that if that an enzyme could be inhibited the acetaldehyde would accumulate and you'd end up with people in that condition would end up with Flushing, headaches, as Aparmita said, all kinds of other symptoms. [00:10:20] Craig Macmillan: And this would vary by person. Different people may have a proclivity to produce more of certain enzymes than others. Is that true? [00:10:29] Andrew Waterhouse: We don't really have any information about that. That's going to take a lot of more work to test you know, the, the details here. For instance. Some people get red wine headaches and some don't, but we don't know whether, for instance, perhaps their enzymes are more inhibited by quercetin glucuronide, or maybe they're just more sensitive to acetaldehyde. [00:10:52] So that's going to take, you know, human studies where we measure a bunch of things. And try to figure out, try to sort through the, the details of how this impacts people individually. [00:11:04] Craig Macmillan: What would a study , with people, investigating this, what would the design be like? How would somebody go about doing that? [00:11:12] Andrew Waterhouse: Okay. So a human study. Could have a couple different possible designs. The one we'll probably use is we'll simply find two wines, two red wines, one that's low in quercetin and one that's high. And then those will be administered to people who get red wine headaches. We'll give it to them blind, they'll have to agree of course to participate in the study. [00:11:37] And then we'll see if their experience of headaches is related to the quantity of quercetin. Now, there's some other designs we could imagine using, which might be a little more straightforward, but we're not sure how relevant they would be or whether we could get approval to do this. So, for instance, one approach would be to find a red wine that's low in quercetin and then simply add it. [00:12:00] Now adding it is tricky for a number of technical reasons. Quercetin itself is very insoluble, so we would have to add what's called a glycoside of quercetin. So we'd have to get our hands on something that would dissolve, et cetera, et cetera. We're not sure we could get approval for that because we're adding a chemical to wine. [00:12:21] Now, the chemical would probably be classified as a supplement, and so it might be approvable, as it were. And then another very simple experiment, which we thought about a while ago, you can buy quercetin as a supplement in the market. It's readily available. [00:12:38] So, one possibility is to simply give our subjects a glass of vodka and give them pills that either contain quercetin or a placebo and see if there's a relationship between administration of quercetin and headaches. [00:12:54] Now the, the quercetin itself, as I mentioned, is very insoluble. So we may have to get these more bioavailable forms of quercetin for that experiment. [00:13:04] Craig Macmillan: That leads to a wine making question. So, if it's relatively insoluble is quercetin extracted from skins more in the alcohol phase at the end of fermentation? [00:13:11] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. It's, it's, it's extracted fairly quickly because it's in the skin, in the grapes, it's in the form of what are called glycosides. So these, Has the quercetin molecule with the sugar attached. That makes all those forms very soluble. [00:13:27] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. Okay. [00:13:29] Andrew Waterhouse: There's actually an occasional problem with certain red wines, most commonly Sangiovese, where after bottling the wine has had a large quantity of quercetin glucosides. And after bottling, they break down, the glycosides break down, releasing just a simple a glycone, quercetin, and you get this disgusting looking gooey brown precipitate in the bottle. [00:13:56] Craig Macmillan: ha [00:13:57] Andrew Waterhouse: Every few years I know the folks at ETS in Napa get somebody showing up with a bottle of Sangiovese that's got this. Disgusting sludge in it, and they can tell them without analyzing that. Yes, another case, of course, it's in precipitate in the bottom. [00:14:15] Craig Macmillan: Huh, that's interesting. I believe it was mentioned in the paper that , obviously different growing conditions are going to lead to different levels of quercetin and grapes based on how much sun exposure they have, etc. And that also different winemaking techniques would have an impact. [00:14:29] If consumers are looking for products if they know they have a headache issue Is it possible they could experiment with different product types? Products that were made with different production methods if they can find that out that might Impact their sensitivity or might impact how often it happens [00:14:46] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah, it's a pity that. Consumers wouldn't have information on the level of quercetin. We would very much like to do a study along those lines, but we haven't been able to find any funding for that, just in case somebody wants to support that kind of work, we're happy to work with them. but anyway you know, it hasn't really been an issue for winemakers, so there isn't a lot of data out there. [00:15:08] There are a few studies that published amounts of quercetin, you know, in wines from different places, but the data is very, very limited and not really useful in providing consumers guidance. The one thing we can say is because, as I mentioned earlier, sun exposure is very important, in general if you look at a particular type of wine, a varietal, say Cabernet or Pinot Noir, that the grapes that are grown on very large vines, will have less sun exposure. [00:15:39] Essentially if you have a very highly productive vineyard making targeting an inexpensive line, you probably have much more shading of the fruit as a consequence of lower quercetin levels. Compared to a very high end vineyard, usually, the amount of sunlight is very tightly controlled, and one of the reasons for that is that there's very good data showing that wines that are high in quercetin have a better mouthfeel, better texture in the mouth. And it's not clear whether quercetin is directly responsible or whether it's a marker for something else that's produced under those conditions that leads to that. many years ago, we did a study looking at phenolics in Cabernet, and we observed that the very high end Cabernets that we tested were much higher in quercetin than the sort of average price type product. [00:16:35] And I think that that was true then. It's probably true now that, you know, a very good cabernet is, is made with very tight control of sun exposure. And there is a fair amount, of course, it can't be a complete sun exposure, or they probably get raisins by the end of the harvest, by the time you get to harvest, but there's a very deliberate management of sun exposure in high end wines. And it's for a reason to, get to higher quality product. [00:17:04] Craig Macmillan: Right, exactly! And, We know that the managed sun exposure, quercetin is a part of it but also it's connected to just total phenolics in general. Lots and lots of different compounds that are, you know, semi related. And I actually wanted to go back Aprametia you identified the quercetin glucuronide as being The highest in the ones that you tested, were there other things in that test and that assay that all were also stood out, maybe not as high as that, but really kind of stuck out as being different than the rest. [00:17:39] Apramita Devi: Actually, the quercetin gluconide was a standalone as a very high, like it's like 78%. The other things were around in that 30 percent range, so I'm not sure how significant was the impact of that, but there were quercetin glycosides forms, which were like around 30 percent inhibition of the enzyme, but [00:18:03] all others were very low. [00:18:04] Craig Macmillan: yeah, so it really stood out basically as it was head and shoulders above it. I would like to put this work into context a little bit. I, I work with the public quite a bit as part of my job and I have for years. And this topic comes up. All the time. This information definitely helps me my goal, when I talk to a consumer that has an issue with, wine headache or whatever it's not that I'm trying to sell them a product as much as it is. [00:18:29] They want to enjoy wine. They tell me this, they say, Oh, I love to have it. I just can't. Da da da. And then they'll say, it's like sulfites. And then I'll kind of explore that with them a little bit. Like, so can you eat dried fruit? Do you eat canned fruit? Do you have reactions to this or to that? Are you asthmatic? [00:18:48] Kind of sort that out and go, okay, I don't think maybe that's it. Maybe it's not. The other ones that I just learned about about 10 years ago was a biogenic amines, which made a lot of sense to me in terms of things like histamine reactions. What is your feeling about sulfites is contributing biogenic amines. [00:19:04] Maybe there's other things we haven't hit on, on this topic. What are your feelings about the, kind of the big picture of what potential for a diagnosing assist? [00:19:15] Andrew Waterhouse: Why don't you talk about amines [00:19:16] Craig Macmillan: Yes, please, [00:19:18] Apramita Devi: Biogenic amines like mostly the histamine and tyramine are the main ones people talk about whenever they come with this headache stuff. So I think because it's formed in the wine during the fermentation process, and there are these spec microbes which can convert the amino acids into this, biogenic amines the histamines are part of inflammatory reactions. People know that in biology and immunology. So it's very easy to be people connected that it might be a reason why people get headache. But what I always focus is like, there are far more other food products, for example, fermented meat products, which has far more higher amount of these biogenic amines. do people get headache if they have something similar with alcohol eating together with alcohol or something like that? But there is no mechanism told till now, they just tell that, oh, since it's histamine and it's related to this inflammatory reactions, it might be the cause. But there is no solid proof that it is the cause. [00:20:27] so I don't know whether it's there or it might be a pathway or not. [00:20:33] Craig Macmillan: One of the things that I find fascinating is how we evolve our, Hypotheses about things over time, and somebody has an hypothesis and they test it out, maybe they find something, maybe they don't, but then that kicks off this whole set of what I call naive science making up stories about why. [00:20:53] It's kind of a just so story. It's like, well, obviously then somebody comes along and checks it and says, Hey, wait a second. And we're no, or if this was true, then that would have to be true. And that's not true. You know, and that kind of thing and how we keep coming around to new ideas, which is what you folks have done, which I think is really, really cool. [00:21:10] Andrew Waterhouse: I was going to answer your question about sulfites. It's a really big question actually. Partly because sulfites have so much visibility and there's so much concern about it. I think sulfites themselves Have been studied pretty carefully there's one study where if they gave subjects a very high level of sulfites in wine, it was like very small, but statistically significant increase in headaches. [00:21:39] Or some adverse reaction, but other studies have shown no correlation. By the way, sulfites are antioxidants in case you hadn't heard that. So it seems very unlikely that sulfites by themselves are some sort of bad actor in this regard. Like you, I get these questions all the time. And what I heard so many times was. Oh, it's cheap wine. It gives me a headache. [00:22:06] Craig Macmillan: Yes. [00:22:07] Andrew Waterhouse: And have you heard [00:22:08] Craig Macmillan: I've heard that many times. And then on the opposite side of things, I've heard stuff like, Oh, I get headaches from American wine, but I don't get it from French wine. Or I always get headaches from European wines, but I never from California wine. So I'm trying to figure out, is there something going on? [00:22:26] Like, can you be allergic to burgundy? You know what I'm saying? Cause I mean, it could be, it could be something about burgundy. It's just stuff going on. And then the opposite. I had a guy who says, no, I don't have any that. But he says I was traveling in France, and we were drinking wine like it was water, and I never had a hangover symptom, and I did it, and I was like, I don't know dude, like I [00:22:45] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. Well, there's, there's one answer to some of this, which is if you're on vacation and you don't have to get up early and you're relaxed and you probably don't get as many headaches. [00:22:58] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:22:59] Andrew Waterhouse: So I think that's a large part of it, especially for Americans visiting Europe. They're on vacation. but I think there is something to the sulfites question. And that is that inexpensive wine often, not always, but often has more bound sulfites. [00:23:18] Craig Macmillan: Yep. [00:23:19] Andrew Waterhouse: And this is probably because those grapes have a little bit more mold on them or a lot more mold. And when they get to the crusher, the winemaker goes, Oh, there's mold on these fruits. So we're going to add sulfites to, to take care of the botrytis, right? [00:23:34] We don't want the fruit to get oxidized and damaged. They had a bunch of sulfites. The consequence of that is that in the finished line, There's a lot more. Bound to SO2, which shows up in the total SO2 number. [00:23:47] You know what it's bound to? [00:23:49] Craig Macmillan: No. [00:23:49] Andrew Waterhouse: It's bound to largely acid aldehyde. [00:23:52] Craig Macmillan: Really? [00:23:53] Oh! Well that would make sense. Yeah, that would make sense. [00:23:56] Andrew Waterhouse: And the, the reason for that is that during the fermentation, the yeast are converting all this sugar the alcohol, but there's an intermediate step which is acetaldehyde. [00:24:06] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:24:07] Andrew Waterhouse: If you have SO2 floating around, as you would if you'd added a lot of it up front, it binds that acetaldehyde before it gets reduced to ethanol, to alcohol. if you start a fermentation with a high level of added SO2, then you will end up with a wine that has more bound acetaldehyde. And that could be a marker, say, of less expensive wine. [00:24:31] So it's possible that those people are, what they're experiencing is direct ingestion of acetaldehyde, which is being released into the blood and that that's causing them a problem. [00:24:45] Now, I've looked and looked, and I cannot find any data on what's called absorption of acetaldehyde from wine, or from food for that matter. I keep, I'm going to keep looking, [00:24:56] but for some reason or other, this hasn't been subject of a published study, although maybe I just haven't been competent enough to find it. [00:25:05] Craig Macmillan: I doubt that. [00:25:07] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, sometimes these are, you know, they're very specialized and they're indexed in funny ways. And, [00:25:13] You know, and the other thing was, you know, when the study came out, I had all these questions. I was talking to this one reporter and she said, well, I can drink natural wine. [00:25:24] It doesn't give me headaches. And I was like, oh boy, what's this about? [00:25:27] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. [00:25:28] Andrew Waterhouse: But thinking about that further when you make natural wine, you don't add any sulfites or at least you're not supposed to, Right. And consequently in the finished wine, the level of acetaldehyde would have to be very low or else it would smell like sherry. [00:25:41] Craig Macmillan: Right. Right. [00:25:43] Andrew Waterhouse: And yes, granted, many natural wines have funky smells, but they don't by and large smell like sherry. [00:25:49] So it's possible that natural wines have in general, Much less acid aldehyde than conventional one. you know, all these questions have brought up some interesting issues, I think, you know, the industry should be looking into you know, these are these issues like how much acid aldehyde Do we want in our wine and how can we reduce it if we want to reduce it? [00:26:15] I don't think anybody's really looking at that yet. I think that would be a very interesting question to pursue. Oh [00:26:24] Craig Macmillan: you just, you just reminded me of, of something two things that I, I had forgotten about. One I used to teach like enology for babies, enology for dummies thing for the public. I am in no way qualified other than just experience to do that. [00:26:39] But I broke it down in that I do that sugar aldehyde, alcohol arrows, and I'd say, okay, this, this acid aldehyde. Remember this one? This one's coming back. We're going to see this again later. So write this one down. We're going to get to that later. And sure enough, now it's just through the body and, and I think breathalyzers work based on that. [00:27:00] Don't they? It's like density. Something like that. So the aldehyde, they're actually, [00:27:05] I think so. I got to look that up again, but because by the time it gets to your breath, your body's, Processing it, right? Hugely important. Not just that compound, but aldehyde is just kind of a general well, maybe we should all invest in like some kind of, I don't know, AO unit or wine X ray or something at our house. [00:27:21] And then we could get the totals and know before we drink it you know, maybe we could figure out if somebody could come up with a consumer friendly, you know, put it in a vial and shake it and it turns blue. Don't drink it kind of thing. I'm just being silly. I don't know. [00:27:34] Andrew Waterhouse: idea. [00:27:35] Craig Macmillan: You go to different like wine shops and stuff, and there's all kinds of stirs and additives and strainers and funnels and stuff that are supposed to take things out. [00:27:45] And I've always really wanted to see what those things do. They do anything or not, or I don't know. I'd like to try it. Finally, is there one takeaway on this topic, this question to both you, one takeaway you'd like people to know, I [00:27:57] Andrew Waterhouse: well, I think the key thing is that we haven't done any experiments on people yet. [00:28:03] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:28:04] Andrew Waterhouse: And so what we have here is, I would call it a well founded theory, [00:28:09] Craig Macmillan: Mhmm. [00:28:09] Andrew Waterhouse: I think people shouldn't rush out and start changing the way they drink yet. They might want to try some experiments. But we don't have the final word yet. [00:28:20] Craig Macmillan: Right, right. [00:28:24] Apramita Devi: Same. Yeah. This is just very preliminary study. And we just have a theory out. So we still don't know, like, what happens in the actual body. [00:28:34] Craig Macmillan: Well, I hope that we can do that. [00:28:36] Andrew Waterhouse: We're always looking for support for experiments. If anybody wants to support that, get in touch. [00:28:43] Craig Macmillan: You know, another creative thought that I have when I'm preparing for this is like, you know, , people either get headaches from wine or they don't. If I'm someone who wants to enjoy wine, but gets headaches, I would be really attracted to a product that had a back label if we could make health. statements, which we cannot, that would say now low in quercetin or, you know, headache free, you know, no, we would never get that through TTP, obviously, but but, but, you know, but we went round and round with that on sulfites, you know you know, organic waste, no added sulfites, you know, you can say that. [00:29:14] Andrew Waterhouse: I think it would be possible to perhaps have a declaration on a bottle about the level of quercetin, whether it's high or low. I suppose. I don't know. [00:29:24] One company did get a label through that had resveratrol levels on it, but then TTB stopped approving that. So only one company has that approval. But I think in that case the reason for denying the label is that it is a proxy for health claim. Thank you. [00:29:44] Quercetin, you know, whether it's high or low is really, it's not, it's not making a health claim. We're not claiming that this wine is healthier for you than the other has to do with headaches or not headaches. [00:29:55] And I don't see that as really a health claim. [00:29:58] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's just see how this develops. You never know. Let's face it. I mean, we're talking about nutrition. This is August of 2024, the date for this recording. We're talking about having nutritional labeling on wine. Right? Which I think would be a very interesting nutritional label, quite frankly. [00:30:13] I would, I would love to see that, you know. Zero percent of the RDA of everything, again, at the end of one of my lectures I'd introduce potassium, and at the end I'd say, so how much wine do you have to drink to get your RDA of potassium? You have to drink a gallon and a half of wine a day. So, maybe not a big contributor. Maybe not a big contributor. Where can people find out more about both of you? [00:30:37] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, I think probably the best starting point would be our LinkedIn pages. [00:30:43] Craig Macmillan: And those will be in the show notes. [00:30:45] Andrew Waterhouse: and I do have a website at UC Davis called waterhouse. ucdavis. edu. [00:30:52] Craig Macmillan: And that will be in there as well. What about you, Apremita? [00:30:54] Apramita Devi: For me, LinkedIn page. [00:30:58] And if people want to see about my research or my past research, they can go to my Google Scholar page to [00:31:05] Craig Macmillan: Awesome. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for being here. Our guests today were Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, and Apramita Devi, a postdoctoral researcher in viticulture and knowledge at UC Davis. Really interesting work. [00:31:21] I'm glad that you folks are doing it. I've been a big fan of you, Dr. Waterhouse, for a long time, and now that I've seen your work, I'm a big fan of you. Apremita. You've done some pretty cool stuff in the last five years. So again, thanks. And thank you for listening to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard team. [00:31:38] Please keep downloading episodes. Please visit the show page. Lots of information there. And we also have a new publication, Understanding Wine Chemistry by Andrew Waterhouse, Gavin Sachs, and David Jeffrey. Is that correct? [00:31:53] Andrew Waterhouse: That's correct. [00:31:55] Craig Macmillan: This is out in the world now. [00:31:57] Andrew Waterhouse: It's just out this month. [00:31:59] Craig Macmillan: That sounds like a must have. [00:32:01] Andrew Waterhouse: I agree. [00:32:03] Craig Macmillan: That sounds like a must have. , I will leave the name out, but there was a very famous book written by a group of folks from CSU Fresno and some collaborators. And I don't have a copy because I bought five copies in my cellar. People stole them every single time. So, this is the same kind of book, folks. [00:32:20] Maybe buy five copies. And just hand them out to give one to your assistant winemaker. Give one to your cellar master and just say, here, these are yours. I'm keeping my copy. Thank you very much. That's, that's really cool. And again, thanks for being on the podcast. [00:32:33] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening today's podcast was brought to you by wonderful laboratories. Wonderful laboratories operates two state of the art high throughput laboratories. He's located in Shaffer, California to support pathogen detection and nutrient analysis. The team provides full service support to customers with field sampling. Custom panels and special projects. They're. Customers include pest control advisors, growers, consultants, seed. Companies, backyard gardeners, ranchers, and more. [00:33:10] Make sure you check out the show notes. To learn more about. Andrew. And Oprah meta. To read a great article about their research. Why do some people get headaches from drinking red wine? [00:33:19] And if you're looking. Looking for. Some more fun wine at trivia to share at holiday parties this season. Listen into sustainable Winegrowing podcast episode. 74, the spirit of wine. [00:33:31] If you liked the show, do. It's a big favor by sharing it with a friend subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the [email protected] slash podcast. Podcast. And you can reach us at [email protected] until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team. [00:33:49]   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

[00:00:00] While, the year is nearing its end. There's still a lot of actibity and work ahead with the holidays. This marketing tip. We'll give you ideas for a greener holiday season. Use them in the tasting. Room. And at home. Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday. With sip certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustained. Sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest. Latest science and research for the wine industry. These monthly. Monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing. [00:00:33] Now let's get into some. Some tips for greener gatherings. [00:00:37] Consider getting a. A living tree rather than a cut or artificial tree. With the right tree and. The proper care it can survive the holiday season and then be planted on your property. [00:00:47] Use led lights for decorating your space. They use up to 90%, less energy than traditional incandescent. Bulbs. And can last up to 25 times longer. At an. Average of 30 cents a kilowatt powering 500 incandescent. C9 bulbs, eight hours a day for 30 days. It would cost $294. While the same five. 500 led bulbs would only cost $37.80. That's also sustainable savings for your pocket book. Plus many led lights have features like dimming. Color adjusting and motion detection. So you can customize your look and. Use them for other occasions. [00:01:27] Do you have holiday events on your calendar?. There are many options for biodegradable plates. Bowls and cutlery. Add them to your compost heap or. Send them to an industrial composting facility. Just be sure not to recycle. Recycle them organic materials can damage recycling equipment. And don't put them in the trash organic waste and landfills could produce methane gas. [00:01:49] And who. Who doesn't love local goods. Invite local vendors into your retail space. Base. To give your guests some locally sourced gift options bonus. Points. If they use natural or recycled materials. Alternative. you could opt for the gift of a local experience like dinner for two a spa day or certificate to a local shop. [00:02:08] Oh, the ribbons and bows, but where do they go? [00:02:11] When it comes to sustainability over the holidays. Days we need to address packaging. [00:02:15] For those of us who aren't the paper and ribbon collector. At the gift exchange, use. Just wrapping materials can be recycled. Plus some can even. And be composted. [00:02:24] Make sure. You check out. At the show notes to link to this article called holiday marketing. Marketing tips. To review an awesome chart. To help you gift. Wrap the Greenway. It covers what kinds of wrapping paper? Tissue paper, gift bags, boxes, ribbons, and bows can. Can be recycled. Composted. Plus some creative alternatives like wrapping. Packaging in a tea towel. And making your own paper bows. [00:02:50] Here's a bonus tip. Check out. Tip number two. In the five sustainable tasting room habits, marketing tip. To learn a few more responsible recycling practices. [00:03:00] This February. We'll continue the celebrate. Celebration of sustainable wine and we'd love for you to come celebrate with us at reciprocal, February over 30 sip certified brands have. I already joined. [00:03:12] And you can join to. Share. ReSIProcal club tastings with participating brands to increase your traffic and. Connect with like-minded brands and wine enthusiasts who value sustainability. [00:03:21] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.   Nearly perfect transcript by Descript.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/happy-holiday-swing License code: QEFYRHVU5DRTFHPW Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic Tips for Greener Holiday Gatherings What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet  Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member