Your Winery Needs Brett Insurance

You may have heard accounts of an entire vintage being affected by Brett Taint, destroying millions of dollars worth of wine as well as damaging the winery’s reputation.  Brett taint occurs when Brett grows. 

Take care of your wine and get Brett Insurance.

Sampling:  Brettanomyces sink to the bottom of the barrel.  Consider getting a 28-inch curved Wine Pipette.  The Wine Pipette is a barrel thief that reaches the barrel bottom; it includes an easy-control rubber pipette-bulb.  

Sample wine where Brett lives.

If your Quarterly Brettanomyces result is NEGATIVE:

1.     Keep Monitoring  

Negative results are good   Celebrate quickly - Keep testing!

a.       Continue testing (i.e. monitor the barrel every quarter) to assure that if Brett is present below the detection concentration (less than 20 CFU/ml), the population does not grow and damage wine. 

b.      If Brett blooms in a barrel, quarterly monitoring (e.g. EZ Blue without filter concentration)  will detect Brett long before it threatens wine quality (greater than 1000 CFU/ml).

c.       Test every barrel; the history of each is different and so are the chances of Brett contamination.  Since Brett is a slow growing organism, quarterly testing allows enough time for corrective action.

d.      Comprehensive monitoring and record keeping:  Set-up a Brett Log notebook, each month test 1/3 of your barrels and record results in the log along with notes on treatment and wine quality.

2.      High Sensitivity Test prior to Bottling   Concentrate wine microbes by filtration before testing on

      SD-Agar plates - for   pre-bottle testing, and for winemakers that prefer Brett monitoring with greater sensitivity.

3.      Get Brett Insurance   To avoid potentially devastating Brett Taint, the winemaker must:

• Understand that low concentrations of Brett can be quiescent for months and then bloom,
• Monitor monthly and doesn’t claim ‘final victory’ with the first negative result
• Perform high sensitivity testing prior to bottling.

If your Brettanomyces result is POSITIVE:

1.     Treat and possibly filter the wine.

2.     Rack the wine and make beautiful furniture out of the barrel.