At 6:30 a.m. in Chile’s Casablanca Valley, two Labrador retrievers named Zamba and Mamba are pawing and sniffing stacks of oak staves destined for wine barrels. International barrel-making company TN Coopers is counting on their remarkable noses to track down such harmful chemical compounds in the wood as TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole) and TBA (2,4,6-tribromoanisole) that could contaminate the flavors and aromas of wine stored in one of its barrels. A signal to the trainer that the dogs have found something brings a reward treat. After a 30-minute stint, they get to rest, and another team takes on the routine.
The gifted dogs represent the company’s burgeoning Natinga Project and offer the latest example of how specially trained canines can be used to prevent vineyard pests and winery disasters. Michael Peters, the resident winemaker and sales manager in TN Coopers’s Sonoma office, says, “They’re more accurate and effective than modern technology.”
A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times more acute than a human’s, thanks to 300 million olfactory receptors, compared to our paltry 6 million. Robotic technology lags behind as well. This has led to “man’s best friend” becoming an essential tool in tracking fugitives and people trapped in building collapses, sniffing out that Italian sausage you thought you could hide in your suitcase while passing through customs, discovering bombs before they explode, and hunting expensive truffles.
In the wine industry, dogs are being used to detect TCA and its relatives, which are the bane of winemakers everywhere. A little TCA goes a long way and is the primary cause of “cork taint,” a musty, moldy, wet cardboard smell and taste in wines. Most people can spot it at a concentration of around 5 parts per trillion, the equivalent of a few drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, according to Jamie Goode, whose most recent book is Flawless: Understanding Faults in Wine (University of California Press, $23).
And it’s far from just a cork issue, says Peters. “It can also contaminate wood used for barrel staves, plastic hoses, pumps, silicon bungs [the stoppers in wine barrels], fining agents, and even infect an entire cellar.”
The financial stakes are high—and the earlier it’s identified, the quicker and cheaper the fix. Last December, for example, Napa’s Opus One winery sued one of its French barrel suppliers for more than $470,000, claiming 10 barrels had been contaminated with TCA, damaging 590 gallons of its $325-a-bottle cabernet.
TN Coopers learned this lesson a decade ago, when it bought wood for barrels that later turned out to be tainted. “We have traceability, so we could recall all of them,” says Peters. Looking for a preventive solution, the owners sought advice from a friend who worked at training dogs to sniff out bombs and drugs at airports. Could dogs help them out, too?
After training, the first two labs, Ambrosia and Odysé, started paw patrol. Then came another, Moro, and last year Zamba and Mamba joined the surveillance team. A trainer works with them daily, and the dogs know it’s time for serious inspection when he slips on their black harnesses.
Now, before the company loads its barrels into a shipping container for transport to wineries around the globe, dogs make sure there’s no TCA, TBA, or other harmful chloroanisole or bromoanisole molecules hanging around in it. Winery clients in Chile regularly request that the dogs check the state of their cellars as a side support service. A new group of puppies is being trained; next year they’ll bring their highly attuned, wet noses to clients in California and elsewhere. “I don’t think we realized how valuable they would be,” says Peters.
Dogs also turn out to be an essential weapon in grape growers’ wars against vineyard pests and diseases.