Cornell creates transformative tech for wine industry

Every day during harvest season, E&J Gallo Winery, based in Modesto, California, collects up to 300 grape samples for screening - to make sure the resulting wine doesn't contain harmful toxins, or taste like grass or mushrooms or wildfire smoke.

But even with machines running around the clock, testing that many samples takes days and requires staff oversight - it's been a bottleneck and a struggle for years, said Nick Dokoozlian, vice president of viticulture, chemistry and enology for Gallo, the largest exporter of California wines and one of the largest global producers of wine by volume.

After 10 years of collaboration and work on the problem, Gavin Sacks, professor of food science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has delivered a solution: a high-throughput analytical platform that slashes screening time from 30 or 40 minutes per sample to just 3 or 4 minutes. The system, called SPMESH-DART, was deployed in Modesto for the first time in October.

"We were really struggling. We knew what we needed, but we had no solution in mind, nor did we even really have a vision for how we get there," said Dokoozlian, who has served as longtime liaison between Gallo and Cornell, recruiting hundreds of students and shepherding projects and investments in analytics, grape genetics and genomics, plant physiology, remote monitoring of grapevine health and more.

"The fundamental work that it took for Gavin to envision and develop the application of SPMESH-DART is not something that we in industry could do, and no university in the United States is better qualified to do this kind of work for the grape and wine industry than Cornell," Dokoozlian said. "Fundamental work is very, very important for advancing our disciplines and our industry, and without it, innovation ceases to exist."

Dokoozlian said the new platform will reduce the complexity of Gallo's operations and allow staff to redirect their energies to more strategic and important tasks.

"As we begin to use the platform on a large scale, we're very excited about the future," he said.

Part of the research challenge was that Gallo, and the industry at large, needed to detect compounds at very low concentrations, at parts per million or billion, in samples with a lot of "chemical noise," Sacks said. His team was able to streamline the process of extracting the compounds by adjusting the chemical makeup of the samples and using a laser-etched polymer sheet. The sheet, sandwiched between two metal plates, is placed over the samples, where it can absorb the volatile compounds, which can then be measured and identified using established methods. The team designed the sheet so that 24 samples can be screened at once.

Gallo and Sacks' team worked with German instrumentation company Bruker to integrate the new process with existing machines.

"These are challenges for the industry, and Gallo has been very open in talking about them, and to investing in solving problems that will bring everybody forward," Sacks said. "Where we ended up with SPMESH-DART is not at all where I thought we were going, but it was all of these modest improvements and new ideas over time, a collaborative effort of small suggestions and changes that add up to something really effective."

"Every time we've run into an obstacle, a challenge, a brick wall, Gavin has been able to pivot and work around it," Dokoozlian said. "The bottom line is that Gallo is using the methodologies that he's developed, and this particular platform is going to be commercialized so that other wineries, food companies, even folks in other industries will be able to use it in the future."

Gallo is currently using the technology to detect compounds that impact flavor and aroma, but Sacks' team, with Gallo's help, is seeking approval from federal regulatory agencies to use the technology to screen for harmful toxins as well.

Sacks said the collaboration with Gallo, and industry in general, provides him and his students with real research questions and real constraints, giving his group greater impact.

The collaboration also provides opportunities for students to experience industry and has often been a pipeline for employment. Cornellians hold multiple leadership and research positions at Gallo, and the company recruits at least half a dozen Cornell student interns every year.

"Our students will very likely be joining the food industry in some role, whether in an academic position, regulatory position, government position, so it doesn't make sense not to think about industry," Sacks said. "Food science as a field serves its purpose by providing people with a safe, high-quality, nutritious food supply - so to decouple food science departments from industry is to make food science irrelevant."

Sacks said the partnership with Gallo, the largest family-owned winery in the U.S., is special because of a set of shared values that includes this support and development of students.

"That's where our journey at Cornell started," Dokoozlian said, "with recruiting the best and brightest talent."

In addition to supporting faculty and graduate students, Gallo has contributed to establishing the National Grape Improvement Center at Cornell AgriTech and provides funding for Cornell's annual conferences for the New York and international grape and wine industries. Gallo has also supported the Efficient Vineyardand Hi-Res Vineyard Nutritionprojects.

"Between the students and the expertise you have on campus, Cornell has a national and international footprint in the grape and wine industry," Dokoozlian said. "You have a college of agriculture embedded in an Ivy League university, and we're able to leverage the critical mass of expertise here - there's really nothing else like it."