Researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, have found a way to prevent smoke taint from fires ruining grape crops. Professor Kerry Wilkinson from the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the university, said that their team investigated the use of activated carbon (AC) fabric bags to prevent grapes from absorbing smoke. These prevented at least 95 percent of the aromatic compounds responsible for smoky, ashy flavours from getting into grapes when they were exposed to smoke. This comes after devastating bushfires in recent years in Australia led to ruined or smoke-affected fruit that was unusable for making wine with the 2020 Black Summer bushfires causing the loss of an estimated four percent of Australian wine grapes due to smoke taint. “Smoke taint occurs because volatile compounds present in smoke are absorbed by grapes when smoke from bushfires drifts into vineyards and lingers for prolonged periods of time,” Wilkinson said. …