Clare Valley’s Grosset Wines trial new technology, Enseal, to combat international wine fraud

Clare Valley’s Grosset Wines trial new technology, Enseal, to combat international wine fraud

Producers are trialling technology aimed at reassuring consumers the wine they are consuming is, in reality, the wine they have acquired.

South Australia’s Grosset Wines proprietor Jeffrey Grosset has started Enseal — a item intended to combat wine fraud, which he claims is a substantial problem in the business.

It really is not the initially time the enterprise has gained a “trailblazer” plaudit when it will come to enhancing the high quality of wines from their Clare Valley foundation, about 100kms north of Adelaide.

The region’s winemakers, which include Mr Grosset, were hailed as leaders in the cork-to-screw-cap movement far more than two a long time in the past.

“As Australian winemakers, we are into innovation and high quality,” he reported.

“Which is surely what the screw caps were about and what this most up-to-date innovation is about as properly. 

A head shot of balding man, slight smile, background blurred.
Jeffery Grosset suggests Enseal has been patented internationally.(Supplied)

“We have designed it about a traditional screw cap, which now has a chip inserted just beneath the top of the cap.”

So, how does Enseal perform?

Customers then use their telephones to hover around the cap, and effectively, the chip will ensure that the wine and label are a match.

Even though Enseal is not commercially readily available yet, the technology is being trialled in Australia and the Uk.

“It can be been patented internationally, and we’re in conversations with two of the major screw cap makers in the environment,” he reported.

The chip will also allow wineries to stage away from guide auditing and move to a digitalised course of action.

A close-up of a wine bottle screw top grey and blue cap with enseal and a symbol engraved on top.
Enseal chip insert is getting trialled in Australia and Uk.(Provided: Jeffery Grosset)

Mr Grosset stated that now additional than ever, the will need for product or service integrity was important.

“There is extra fraud in wine than there at any time has been just before,” he mentioned.

“The sum of fraud happening, not with just Australian wine, but almost everywhere, is very major and in all probability a lot bigger than persons realise.”

A blue sign with Grosset, welcome, entrance in front of a gate and an old brick building, greenery in front and side, blue door.
Grosset Vineyards are the founders of Enseal.(Provided: Grosset Wines)

What is wine fraud, precisely?

Wine fraud can be accomplished in 3 methods: refiling vacant labelled bottles with unrelated wine, changing slight label aspects, or completely labelling bottles with misrepresented info about the range, area or classic.

Mr Grosset claimed it was hard to measure to what extent wine fraud was happening to Australian wines internationally.

“We’re fortunate in Australia because just one of the advantages of screw caps is that they are harder to fake the wine,” he stated.

“It is really additional difficult but not difficult.”

Technological know-how has multiple gains

He explained Enseal would also give producers the chance to join and share facts about the wine with the consumers.

This could be a timeline from when the grapes were picked to when they arrived at their intercontinental desired destination.  

More especially, information and facts like rainfall details and sunshine several hours could also be extra.

Mr Grosset reported that undertaking Enseal was not an pricey approach, specially when weighed against the value of the precise wine.

“[It’s] at a very lower price tag. You’re only chatting about two to 30 cents, not bucks,” he claimed.  

“In a way, we are striving to get people used to just getting out their telephones and examining to see that it is what it claims it is and it has not been opened.”

Mr Grosset claimed that not like a QR code, which could be very easily photocopied, the chip was joined to an immutable file procedure that could not be replicated.

Winemakers need to defend ‘reputation’

Clare Valley’s Kilikanoon Wines general manager Travis Fuller said he was excited by the enhancements that Enseal could deliver the wine field.

“It’s the future evolution for screw cap, which the Clare Valley in essence pioneered,” he explained.

Mr Fuller stated that counterfeiting wine was easy, and when shoppers were mindful of this, they would want product reassurance.

“Regretably, we make some wonderful wine in Australia, and some people today try and duplicate it,” he claimed.

“It can be really rife.”

Mr Fuller mentioned it was up to Australia to protect the “excellent popularity” of its wines.

A close-up of a smiling man, receding hairline, background blurred.
Travis Fuller claims he is thrilled to see the added benefits of the new technoolgy.(Equipped: Kilikanoon Wines)

But, he reported, the new technological innovation would set a stop to fraud and give producers valuable facts about their wine marketplaces.

“You could get to the level now with this technological innovation that when someone buys your wine in a retailer in Wimbledon in the British isles, you know when it truly is been opened,” Mr Fuller explained.

“You can commence to see where your solution is in fact getting consumed. It’s quite exciting stuff.”