A Quest for Quality Wine, Every Time.: A Guide for Root Cause Analysis.

ISBN-13: 9783030339999 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 243 str.

Joyce Steakley; Bruce Steakley

Spis treści

Chapter 1.  Quest for Quality Wine, Every Time.  Guide to Root Cause Analysis.  Introduction

Chapter 2.  Quality Wine: Degree of Excellence and Distinctive Characteristics. 12

2.1 What is Quality?. 12

2.2 Get to personally know the quality of your own wine. 14

2.3 Quality Assessments and Indicators. 16

2.3.1 Maynard Amerine and the University of California at Davis 20-Point Scale. 18

2.3.2 Quality of a wine determined by experts and a single numerical score. 22

2.3.2.1 Robert Parker’s numerical scoring system... 22

2.3.2.2 Jancis Robinson’s 20-point numerical scoring system... 24

2.3.3. Quality found in wine laws and labeling. 26

2.3.3.1 A closer look at U.S. wine laws, labels, and quality. 32

2.4 Quality proxies and how they correlate. 37

2.5 Quality Definition Summary: 41

2.6 Bibliography. 42

Chapter 3.  Root cause analysis applied to grape growing and winemaking. 43

3.1 The Cause & Effect Diagram (The Fishbone Diagram) 44

3.2 The 5 Whys. 48

3.2.1 Another set of penetrating questions. 49

3.3 The Kepner-Tregoe Analysis Method: focus on decision-making. 50

3.4 The Best of Best and Worst of Worst 57

3.5 Bibliography. 57

Chapter 4. Quality Grape Growing and Winemaking, Nurtured with Family, Friends, and Fun. 58

4.1 Step 1 – Grow.. 59

4.2 Step 2 – Harvest 64

4.3 Step 3 – Crush. 68

4.4 Step 4 – Ferment 71

4.5 Step 5 – Press. 73

4.6 Step 6 – Age. 75

4.7 Step 7 – Clarify. 77

4.8 Step 8 – Bottle. 79

4.9 Step 9 – Store. 82

Chapter 5. Red wine volatile acidity problem solving with cause and effect analysis. 85

5.1 Red Wine Volatile Acidity Basics. 86

5.2 High VA Problem Statement and Cause and Effect Diagram... 87

5.3 Process and Red Wine VA.. 88

5.3.1 Process Phases 1 and 2, Grape Growing and the Harvest 90

5.3.2 Process Phases 3, 5, and 7: Destem and Crush, Press, and Clarification. 94

5.3.3 Process Phase 4: Fermentation and VA.. 95

5.3.4 Process Phase 6: Aging and VA.. 99

5.4 Material and Red Wine VA.. 103

5.4.1 Grape Materials. 103

5.4.2 Yeast material 105

5.4.3 Malolactic Fermentation (MLF) with Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) 108

5.5 Equipment and Red Wine VA.. 111

5.6 People and Red Wine VA.. 117

5.7 Measurement Errors and Red Wine VA.. 122

5.8 Environment and Red Wine VA.. 129

5.9 RCA Summary of Red Wine VA.. 134

5.10 Bibliography. 135

Chapter 6. Red wine imbalance problem solving with cause and effect analysis. 136

6.1 Red Wine Imbalance Basics. 137

6.2 Imbalanced Wine Problem Statement and Cause and Effect Diagram... 139

6.3 Process Phases and Imbalanced Red Wine Problem... 141

6.3.1 Grape Growing and Harvest Process Phases. 141

6.3.2 Balance Impact from Destem and Crush and Cold Maceration Juice Treatment 147

6.3.3 Finding Wine Balance, or Imbalance Problems in the Fermentation Process Phase. 149

6.3.4 Imbalance impact from the Press Phase. 154

6.3.5 Finding wine imbalance during the Aging process phase. 154

6.4 Materials and Possible Causes of Red Wine Imbalance. 163

6.4.1 Grape Materials and Imbalance. 164

6.4.2 Balancing three important materials in finished wine: alcohol, acid, and tannins. 167

6.4.2.1 Malolactic (ML) Secondary Fermentation and Balance. 169

6.4.3 Imbalance and yeast type. 170

6.5 Equipment and Imbalanced Red Wine. 171

6.6 People and Wine Imbalance. 176

6.7 Measurements and Wine Imbalance. 181

6.8 Environment and Wine Imbalance. 186

6.8.1 Temperature / Time impact on Balance during grape growing and harvest 188

6.8.2 Temperature / Time impact on Quality and Balance During Fermentation. 188

6.8.3 Temperature / Time impact on Balance during Aging. 190

6.8.4 Preventive measures for improving balance of fruit to vegetal characteristics involving temperature. 190

6.8.5 Likely environmental-induced causes for this scenario’s imbalance. 191

6.9 Deep Dive: The Next Layer of Prioritization. 192

6.10 RCA Summary of Red Wine Imbalance. 197

6.11 Bibliography. 197

Chapter 7.  Red wine color resolution with rational decision-making methods. 199

7.1  Kepner-Tregoe Application to Wine Color Problem... 199

7.1.1  Quick review of KT analysis basics. 200

7.1.2  Define the Color Problem Resolution Options. 202

7.1.3 Define Color Decision Attributes and Assign Numerical Weights. 203

7.1.4  Assign numerical scores to color fix options and attributes. 207

7.1.5 The Integrated KTA matrix and best decision. 213

7.1.6 Sensitivity to the magnitude of your weights. 214

7.1.7 Summary of the KT method applied to our wine color problem... 219

7.2  ‘Quick-look’ Rational Assessment 219

7.3 Bibliography. 224

Chapter 8:  Wine Quality Problem Cause Identification with the Best of the Best and Worst of the Worst (BowWow) Method. 225

8.1 Where does one start?  BowWow can help. 225

8.2 The Mystery of the four young Cabernet Sauvignon wines. 229

8.3 The Mystery of the five Meritage blends. 233

8.3.1 BowWow aids in reducing search space within process phases. 244

8.3.2 BowWow revelations on Materials. 248

8.3.3 BowWow revelations on Equipment 249

8.3.4 BowWow revelations on People. 249

8.3.5 BowWow revelations on Measurements. 250

8.3.6 BowWow revelations on Environments. 250

8.3.7 Assessment for the best of the best and worst of the worst of our five-blend mystery. 250

8.4 BowWow Summary: 252

8.5 Bibliography. 253

Chapter 9. Quest for Quality Wine, Every Time. Guide to Root Cause Analysis. Summary and Conclusions  254

9.1 Summary. 254

9.2 Conclusion: Are We There Yet?. 256

9.2.1 Evidence of Quality Improvement 258

 

O autorze

Joyce is a retired Aerospace Executive with 30 years of experience in materials and processes, contamination control, operations, and engineering.  She has several published papers in the field of spacecraft contamination control.  After retirement she worked in the wine industry in a tasting room, a winery lab, a home winemaking supply shop, and installed a couple of home vineyards.  

Bruce is a retired Technical Fellow with over 35 years in Aerospace developing ground, air, and space optical sensors and systems.  Bruce has been a research scientist, engineer, systems engineer, and program manager.  Bruce has published technical papers and taught optical systems engineering courses. 

Joyce and Bruce both have Winemaking Certificates from the U.C. Davis School of Enology and Viticulture.  Both of us have spent decades making things and solving problems.  We currently plant, grow, maintain, and harvest grapes from our own vineyard.  We crush, ferment, age, test, and bottle the wine in our own winery.  We have done many things right and many things wrong.  Some of our wines have won awards and others have not.  We have learned from both.  We are two winemakers on a Quest for Quality wine, Every Time.

Blurb

Wine has been around for thousands of years, grape growing and wine production is worldwide, and recipes are prolific.  However, this approach to winemaking root cause analysis is original and cannot be found in any other winemaking publications. The book start with the basics, with the authors' own basic winemaking steps. This provides a winemaking process and common language.  With this understanding and departure point, they describe Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methods as applied to winemaking.

Though winemaking appears to have simple steps, problems or flaws inevitably arise.  Instant access to online materials can provide ad-hoc answers to given conditions; however, the applicability of these solutions to one’s own situation ad particular conditions is not always clear.  Selective changes may or may not solve the problem and in the winemaking world, it may take years to finish the wine and understand if the quality actually improved or not. A finished wine will have thousands of particular current and historical conditions that played some role in its quality.The root cause analysis (RCA) approach provides a path to sort these out and guide winemakers to the solution. It creates a problem statement and systematically divides the world into six discrete groups. This book tackles each and all of these, one group at a time. 

The text contains examples that prioritize the contributing factors. Observations are noted, possibilities identified, and likelihoods assessed. Actions and tests are identified to aid in assigning risk, corrective action, and preventive measures.  Given limited time and resources, prioritized risks and actions improve the chance of solving the problem. The book provides problems exploring each of their respective six group characteristics. Each RCA step is described and illustrated in detail. The process is revealed and explained through multiple examples.

Feature 1: Organized systematic method for solving winemaking quality problems

Feature 2: Applicable to amateur or commercial winemakers or any other product or system development activity and organization

Feature 3: Unique new application to the wine making world but similar methods historically used in complex aerospace product development 

Feature 4: Teaching winemakers and producers how to think about uncertainty and error. It’s possible that gold medal wine, or 95-point Wine Spectator score, or 93-point Robert Parker score was deserved for that particular wine and vintage. But it is also possible you were very lucky.  It may not be earned again in next year’s vintage. This book teaches approaches and methods to maintain and or improve the quality, every year.

Feature 5: Application of a potentially 'dry' rigorous root cause analysis approach in a world that enables the joy of creating and appreciating something very enjoyable. It will help you smile, at least once a year.