Press release -
Chr. Hansen receives innovation award from US wine industry
We are proud to announce the reception of an Innovation + Quality Award for our Viniflora® CONCERTO™, a specialty yeast to kick-start the alcoholic fermentation
The award was handed out at the 2016 edition of Innovation + Quality (IQ) held in Napa Valley, California; an annual forum for ultra-premium wineries focused on cutting-edge innovations that advance wine quality.
“We are proud to be receiving this accolade from an organization of the top high end wine producers in the US, which is an important market for us.
Award candidates were hand selected solely on criteria of innovation that lends itself to high-quality, ultra-premium winemaking, focusing on products that they believe are the best of the best. This honor will undoubtedly strengthen our market position and image as a reliable and innovative partner to the global wine industry,” says Dr Hentie Swiegers, Head of Chr. Hansen’s Wine Innovation department.
In photo: Chr. Hansen’s Hentie Swiegers (right) with Peter Mondavi Jr, a renowned wine maker and head of the Charles Krug-Peter Mondavi Family Napa Valley Winery. Peter, on the advisory board for the IQ Award, was impressed that our award winning yeast, Concerto™, had the ability to produce lactic acid from sugars and thereby help reduce alcohol levels naturally.
A microbial solution to defeat global warming impact on wines
The award winning product Viniflora® CONCERTO™ was launched a few years ago and is a natural alternative to push away uniformity and bring complexity to the wine.
The special strain of yeast partially converts the sugars present in the must into lactic acid, which increases the acidity in the wine and moderately reduces the alcohol/ethanol level. This meets increasing consumer demand for rounder, easier-to-drink wines with lower alcohol by volume (ABV), centered around 12-13%.
It also offsets the impact that increasing temperatures have on the grapes, causing dull, low acid, high alcohol and qualitatively less drinkable wine. Concerto™ is a natural weapon to give freshness and balance to heavy powerful wines from warm climate regions such as California, Australia and the Mediterranean countries.
In North America Viniflora® Concerto™ is available exclusively at Gusmer Enterprises Inc. who also markets other Chr. Hansen strongholds in the Viniflora® portfolio of yeasts and bacteria for winemaking.
Only in 2014 Chr. Hansen received a Frost & Sullivan “Global Award for New Product Innovation Leadership” for its proven track record in pioneering innovation for the wine industry and ensuring consumers high quality, safe and diverse wines.
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Chr. Hansen is a leading, global bioscience company that develops natural ingredient solutions for the food, nutritional, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. We develop and produce cultures, enzymes, probiotics and natural colors for a rich variety of foods, confectionery, beverages, dietary supplements and even animal feed and plant protection. Our product innovation is based on more than 30,000 microbial strains – we like to refer to them as ‘good bacteria’. Our solutions enable food manufacturers to produce more with less – while also reducing the use of chemicals and other synthetic additives – which make our products highly relevant in today’s world. We have been delivering value to our partners – and, ultimately, end consumers worldwide – for over 140 years. We are proud that more than one billion people consume products containing our natural ingredients every day. Revenue in the 2016/17 financial year was EUR 1,063 million. Chr. Hansen was founded in 1874 and is listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen.
