French students eliminate laboratories from wine-production process

By Mathew Lyons

Published: 31 March, 2016

A new device for monitoring the quality of wine as it matures has been developed by a team of students from Université Paris-Saclay in France.

Named True Spirit, the technology is designed to eliminate the need for wineries to send samples of their wines to laboratories for analysis.

Winemakers will be able to use True Spirit technology to test their entire production output for factors such as alcohol and acidity levels and share the results wirelessly through an online oenological platform.

The device was adapted by the three-strong team of post-graduate engineering and business students from a blood analysis technology developed by French biotech start-up Archimej Technology.

The team met while studying at the Institut d'Optique Graduate School, part of Université Paris-Saclay.

The project formed part of a start-up competition at the university, and the team has just returned from a trip to California's Silicon Valley where they tested and refined their ideas.

The students plan to meet with winemakers in Bordeaux to develop their technology further.

Luv Valecha, co-founder of True Spirit, said: "Today, we are testing our prototype and working with different labs and wineries, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

"Not only can we analyse wine but also spirits, beer, perfumes, olive oil and fuel."

Archimej Technology was founded in 2012 and aims to disrupt the the biomedical industry with its Beta-Bioled device, the first mobile and personal blood analyzer.

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