Development of a rapid automated method for analysis of wine phenolics

The automation of the Folin-Ciocalteu method gives winemakers the ability to track the phenolic development of their wines from grapes through bottle aging. Using segmented flow analysis, this automated method has the ability to analyze 48 samples per hour and benefits from increased precision over the manual method. This new automated method was used during the 2004 harvest at Fresno State Winery to track the phenolic development of three varieties from harvest through aging. Each variety showed a unique phenolic extraction pattern.