Phyterra's Technology
Phyterra Yeast Inc. is a world leader in the research, development and commercial application of yeast to solve significant problems in foods, beverages and healthcare industries. The company’s most advanced products are in commercial winemaking, where its hydrogen sulphide-preventing yeasts are being sold commercially to wineries. The company’s acrylamide-reducing yeast is in pre-commercial evaluation and development with global partners.
Oenological Research
Phyterra’s primary focus is to help winemakers produce excellent, high quality wines from our patented yeast strains. Formation of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is a major problem in winemaking because, if untreated, it can leave a wine with an undesirable rotten-egg sensory characteristic.
The core value to winemakers in our yeast line is the elimination of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) during the fermentation process. H2S is a well recognized, widespread and consistent problem in wine production. It occurs unpredictably as a distinctly unpleasant odor resembling rotten eggs - a quality defect that can render a wine product unsalable if not treated.
H2S is a colorless volatile gas which produces a distinctive unpleasant rotten eggs odor in wine, beer, and other fermented beverages. Unless H2S is removed from wine promptly, it can react with other wine materials and form other off-odors and off-flavors which can be difficult and costly to remove.
Current methods of resolution used by the wine industry are largely remedial in nature, implemented once a wine product has already been tainted. Such remediation processes may involve additional production steps that can negatively affect quality and cost. The benefit to winemakers from our Phyterra yeasts is that, by using our product during the fermentation to tackle the H2S problem, it is a preventive strategy -- preventing H2S from occurring in the first place rather than attempting to remove it afterward – Phyterra, Wellness for Wines®.
A significant accomplishment for the company has been the acquisition to commercialize the proprietary hydrogen sulphide (H2S) reducing yeast technology developed by Dr. Linda Bisson, at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis).
The innovative approach of Dr. Bisson, a viticulture/ enology professor at the UC Davis, was to find a way to prevent H2S from occurring in the first place rather than attempting to remove it afterwards. Supported by the American Vineyard Foundation (AVF) Dr. Bisson isolated a yeast strain that naturally prevents H2S during fermentation. The reached goal now was to breed this outstanding and unique characteristic of preventing H2S into almost every yeast strain just by using classic, non-GMO breeding techniques. Phyterra Yeast is commercializing different natural wine yeasts that all include the H2S preventing feature.