Can a wine be pirated?

“It’s not possible,” says Romano, director of research and development at industrial microbiologists LEV2050. “You can make a similar wine, but a perfect replica is not possible because of the high quantity of variables you have in the liquid,” he explains. These variables are collectively known as a wine’s ‘terroir’ – the complex mix of environmental conditions that give a wine its unique taste.

This includes the microorganisms used to create the wine ‘starter’ for the fermentation process, which are unique to the ground the wine is grown in. “If you are doing any spontaneous fermentation, then your own microorganisms are going to contribute to the taste and other things,” he adds. But even if you get these organisms close to the original wine, nutrition and many other parameters are key to the final product.

Local climate also plays a part. And even the size of the land matters: if you grow wine on a small piece of land but demand is high, the laws of economics suggest the price of a wine will go up – this is also part of a wine’s individual character.

That’s because even – in theory – if you could recreate the same environmental conditions, using the same fermentation starter and the same production processes, you still wouldn’t be able to pirate a wine, says Romano. The reason: branding.

“The brand is obviously the most important thing,” he notes. “You can have a similar wine, but if you have a specific brand that is made in small fields, with other relevant factors, you can have something similar – but it’s not a pirate wine.”In the EU-funded ECOBIOMASS project, Romano and his team developed a way to mass-produce the natural microorganisms used in wine production. As these are difficult to produce at scale, it limits the creation of certain wines – particularly those from protected origins.

ECOBIOMASS created bioreactors able to grow these microorganisms in large volumes, which could also enable more wineries to use their own native microorganisms to create new hallmarks.

As the global climate warms, the complex chemistry underpinning wine production will change too. This means certain wine regions may no longer be able to grow the same grapes, and the flavour of wines may change over time.

Unfortunately, recreating wines elsewhere as a ‘backup’ may not be a possibility. Yet as Romano explains, the changing climate may bring unique, diverse microorganisms that could lead to new wines.

“Every microorganism prints its fingerprint in the final product, not only different species but also different strains of the same species,” he remarks. “There are many microorganisms to explore and test.”

Click here to find out more about Miguel Romano’s research: Scaling up native microorganisms to create customised wines