The recent festival of sparkling wine, held in Launceston last weekend, was the host of a sampling day for Tasmanian producers who were able to taste the wine from the six-year project.

The TIA research project examined the impact of vineyard treatments on sparkling wine characteristics and the corks were popped on the wine created from the research at the tasting day at Tamar Ridge Vineyard.

Lead researcher Fiona Kerslake said the tasting day was the culmination of the research that began in 2010 and looked at isolated viticulture practices such as leaf removal, crop load and pruning techniques and what impact those practices had on the characteristics of the end product sparking wine produced in Tasmania.

 “The sparkling wines will then be sent to the Australian Wine Research Institute, Metabolomics Australia and the University of Adelaide for further analysis of the compounds associated with texture, mouthfeel, flavour and aroma,” Dr Kerslake said.

The results from the technical tasting day will contribute to the identification of compounds that influence the characteristics of aged sparkling wines.

“By looking at the different treatments in isolation it is hoped that our findings will help wine producers manage their vines to produce the fruit needed to create a particular style of sparkling wine,” Dr Kerslake said.

Most wine producers apply a variety of vineyard treatments to their vines during the year which makes it difficult to pinpoint which treatment contributed to a particular characteristic of the wine.

The next phase of the research will be to investigate technologies that shorten the process of ageing premium sparkling wine while maintaining or improving the quality of the end product.

The aim will be to provide efficiency for wine producers to enable them to get product on the shelves in a shorter period of time.

The next phase of the $1.4 million project is funded by Wine Australia win in-kind support from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, HillSmith Family Vineyards (Jansz/Dalrymple/Yalumba), the University of Adelaide, Apogee Tasmania and Josef Chromy. 

The original project, that started in 2010, was funded by AusIndustry in collaboration with Wine Tasmania and a consortium of wine companies.

Effervescence was a festival to celebrate Tasmanian sparkling wine and was held on November 3-6.