Technologies

California Wine Ruined by Wildfires Leads Chemists to Analyze Grapes for Smoke

«This research is highly valuable, with the potential to save countless dollars, and is increasingly relevant in our world of drought and climate change.»

The year 2020 left winemakers heartbroken.

As deadly wildfires on the US West Coast ripped through homes and tore apart forests, smoke seeped into world-renowned vineyards in California’s Napa Valley.

Precious grapes, lovingly nurtured in the name of beautiful wine, were ruined by the taste of fumes and grief. But winemakers continued their craft, hoping their grapes were among the few left unscathed. Most vintners weren’t so lucky. Their products were permeated by an acrid flavor, referred to as smoke taint. Wine once meant to go for $100 a bottle could now only be added to blends selling for $5 a gallon.

Looking to avert this sort of catastrophe in the future, especially as the climate crisis exacerbates wildfire rates even further, scientists are studying a clearcut way to chemically analyze which grapes and wines are subject to smoke taint and which aren’t. They published their outline this month in the Journal of Natural Products.

«What I discovered was that proper analytical data was not provided to figure out if the grapes or wines were affected by the smoke,» Phillip Crews, a chemist at UC Santa Cruz and winemaker at Pelican Ranch Winery, said in a statement. Smoke taint was first brought to Crews’ attention in 2018 as a result of the Mendocino Complex Fire aftermath, when wineries began rejecting ruined grapes from the region.

Without such a metric, post-wildfire winemaking and selling calls for a hefty amount of guesswork, like with the 2020 harvest. Thus, tainted grapes are often accidentally turned into wine that then gets rejected, leading to lost product, or tainted wine is sometimes sold under the guise of a good quality offering, resulting in lost reputation.

Basically, Crews and fellow researchers meticulously studied more than 200 grape and wine samples from 21 grape-growing regions in California and Oregon, each exposed to varying levels of smoke. They uncovered several «biomarkers,» or compounds present in the fruit or alcohol, that indicate the item is smoke tainted.

«There are still major gaps in our understanding of these compounds, so more research is needed,» Crews said. «But people can use these procedures now to look at a bottle of wine or a batch of grapes and tell if it’s likely to be affected by smoke taint.»

Searching for spoiled grapes

Right now most available research into smoke taint, per the study, focuses on smoke-derived compounds called volatile phenols.

These molecules are present in fumes from burning vegetation, such as trees during wildfires. Ripening grape skin can absorb these compounds, which is why it makes sense to check out grapes for these phenols — if they’re there, you’d think it’s safe to say the grapes are smoke tainted.

But Crews says identifying only the phenols doesn’t offer a full picture of smoke taintedness. There’s a caveat. Once inside grapes, the phenols bind to sugars and form totally new structures known as phenolic diglycosides that leave the smoke taint undetectable. That’s why it’s so hard to tell which grapes are affected and which aren’t. However, as soon as compromised products hit certain enzymes, such as those present in our saliva, the unwanted taint is released.

«We found that the phenolic diglycosides are stable in cabernet sauvignon during bottle aging, but then, during tasting, the monomers that smell bad get released in the mouth,» Crews said.

This is why Crews says scientists must measure the phenolic diglycosides directly, instead of relying on the ever-changing volatile phenols. That way, the smoke taintedness can be definitively detected prior to tasting. Through sophisticated chemistry methods, such as quantitative mass spectrometry, the study researchers pinpointed several biomarkers associated with phenolic diglycosides in their samples of grapes and wine.

«This research is highly valuable, with the potential to save countless dollars, and is increasingly relevant in our world of drought and climate change,» Eleni Papadakis, a winemaking consultant in Portland, Oregon, who wasn’t directly involved in the study, said in a statement.

She added, «I believe I speak for the whole of the winemaking community when I express the excitement and appreciation for the strong data and evidence-based guidance Professor Crews and his team have provided with this groundbreaking work.»

Technologies

Memorial Day Deal: The Apple Watch SE Returns to Its Best Price of 2025 So Far

Buy the Apple Watch SE for just $169 before the deal ends.

Memorial Day deals are in full swing right now and one of our top-rated smartwatches is on sale. The Apple Watch SE has dropped to its best price of the year, albeit one that might not last for long. If an Apple Watch SE is on your wish list, this deal is for you — order today, and you’ll pay just $169 for the 40mm version in your choice of case and band combinations.

Given the sometimes volatile pricing, we suggest ordering as soon as possible. This is your chance to pick up a solid smartwatch at a price that won’t break the bank.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

The Apple Watch SE is a great wearable. It also makes an excellent first smartwatch for kids. Features include crash detection, heart rate monitoring and activity tracking. Apple also says this model is carbon-neutral when you choose the Sport Loop band.

Looking to compare prices on Apple Watches? We’ve rounded up the best Apple Watch bargains. And if you’re hoping for a new iPhone to pair with that watch, we’ve rounded up our favorite iPhone deals, too.

Why this deal matters

We’re big fans of Apple’s smartwatches but not everyone can pay to put the company’s premium models on their wrist. The Apple Watch SE offers many of the same features on a budget, and this is your chance to get it for even less than usual. This is the lowest price we’ve seen this model fall to in the last few months, which makes now the perfect time to order yours.

Technologies

What to Expect (and Not Expect) From OpenAI and Jony Ive’s AI-Centric ‘Screenless Phone’

Here’s everything we know so far about the mysterious upcoming AI device from the iPhone designer and creator of ChatGPT.

AI is coming for your phones — this you know by now and maybe you’ve already experienced it for yourself in the form of Apple Intelligence or Google’s Gemini.

But OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT and perhaps the biggest name in AI software and services right now, is making a different bet. It’s looking beyond the traditional smartphone and thinking about how AI might reinvent our devices altogether.

On Wednesday, the company announced that it had bought Jony Ive’s device startup IO for $6.5 billion. Together, Ive and Altman are building something new — a device unlike anything we’ve owned before, with AI at its core.

«It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company,» the pair said in a statement about their working relationship. «The IO team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco.»

Ive is the visionary veteran Apple designer, who together with Steve Jobs created the iPhone, along with a long list of Apple devices. Now he’s turned his attention to creating a fresh device category, which has clearly piqued the interest of Altman. Ive’s startup has reportedly been working on a «screenless phone» — although other reports suggest it’s actually not a phone at all.

Rumors of this mysterious AI-focused device have been circulating for months but Ive and Altman are keeping a tight lid on the details, fearing that a competitor may try to beat them to market.

So, for now, we’ll just have to imagine.

The obvious existing point of comparison is the Humane AI Pin, an AI-specific device designed to be worn clipped to your collar. It launched to much fanfare in February 2024, but turned out to be a spectacular failure, creating a lasting air of pessimism around the entire idea of AI devices.

«It is unsurprising that there is skepticism about this type of product, particularly in the context of the high-profile failure of the Humane AI, which captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts, including me, but turned out to be a classic example of over-promising and under-delivering,» said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

The combination of Ive and Altman though, is full of potential. «It would be foolish to bet against Jony Ive, given his remarkable track record of delivering products that disrupt a market,» said Wood.

«I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this moment,» Ive said in a YouTube video in which the pair talk about their friendship.

Their challenge, says Thoman Husson, VP principal analyst at Forrester, «is not just to use AI to enhance existing tasks, but to invent new products and experiences.»

That said, OpenAI’s ambitions for its AI devices are that it’s able to ship 100 million units — a bold bet for a software company entering the hardware space for the first time, with no pre-established supply chain.

«Jony Ive is an exceptional designer but smartphones (and hardware) is a volume play about scale and scope,» said Husson. «I think Apple is still best placed to win this marathon race.»

A wearable? Glasses? A phone? Perhaps not

In the absence of any substantial hints or clues, we remain for now in the dark as to what this first piece of OpenAI hardware will look like, how it will function and how it will fit into our lives.

There’s been some speculation, based largely on claims made by reliable Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo, that the OpenAI device will be a wearable. In a social media post, Kuo said the io product was designed to be worn around the neck and was «as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle.»

This would indicate that Altman and Ive are taking a different approach to Meta, which has gone all in on smart glasses. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the glasses are the ultimate AI device, because of their ability to receive and deliver information in close proximity to your eyes and and ears.

But we should also be prepared for the possibility that Altman and Ive’s device isn’t a wearable at all. According to the Wall Street Journal, Altman said Ive was skeptical about the idea of AI wearables, making it sound unlikely that he would embrace them as part of this project.

Citing a briefing given by Altman to OpenAI employees, the WSJ reports that the device «will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.»

It’s curious to see the OpenAI screenless phone being discussed this way, almost as if it falls within Apple’s specific family of products. The WSJ said Altman is envisaging in the long term «a family of devices,» which will be defined by what Ive described as «a new design movement.»

Perhaps the only thing we know for sure about this product is that it won’t come with a screen. Altman has been critical of the amount of time we spend looking at screens — but is there room on the market for devices that tempt us away from our screens? «Except smartwatches, no new product category has emerged since the smartphone,» said Husson. «There is room for disruption and innovation.»

This not-a-phone, not-a-wearable currently exists to us only as an amorphous third thing — and likely will do for some time yet. Keep checking back for more rumors and updates, which we will add as we get more information about what kind of device may rule our lives in the near future, just as the smartphone does today.