Wine scientists Fiona Kerslake, Anna Carew and Jo Jones each have their own research project and are all contributing to a fourth project that has been funded by Wine Australia.

Dr Kerslake said the team’s funding success demonstrated the impact and effectiveness of the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture’s industry-embedded approach.

“We are advancing Tasmania’s status as an ultra-premium wine producer through industry-driven research that is helping businesses improve their wine through each step of the production process from the vineyard to the glass,” Dr Kerslake said.

Dr Jones will test near infra-red light technology to measure vine bud fruitfulness. For example, how many bunches of fruit each bud would produce. Dr Jones’ goal is to develop a hand-held tool that will save time, be more accurate, reduce unnecessary bunch removal during pruning, and produce more consistent yields.

Dr Kerslake’s project will analyse what wine-making processes contribute to the flavour, mouth-feel and textural properties of premium sparkling wine. Dr Kerslake will also test a number of novel methods that may hasten flavour development and reduce the time required for autolysis.

Dr Carew will examine evidence for the uniqueness of Australian pinot noir that will generate robust, tangible scientific and qualitative evidence to explain the character, quality and provenance of the emerging wine. Once established, the methods developed in this project will be applicable to other red wine varieties.

The fourth project the scientists are contributing to aims to develop tools to help wine growers manage short-term climate cycles and long-term climate change. It is being led by the Antarctic Climate Ecosystem CRC in collaboration with TIA, the South Australian Research and Development Institute and the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.

Dr Kerslake said the projects would assist to advance Tasmanian wine producers with new knowledge.

"Our job here is to assist Tasmanian vineyard managers and wine makers to build their reputation and produce premium products through applied scientific knowledge,” she said.

The TIA team ran wine-tasting sessions at Wine Tasmania’s annual conference Ferment in Hobart this week to give winemakers the chance to sample for themselves the effect novel methods of colour and tannin extraction could have on pinot noir wines.