I'm going to make a prediction. I reckon the next battleground in the wine world will be the controversial use of genetically modified (GM) yeasts in winemaking. Plenty of these genetically modified strains already exist in laboratories around the globe, but they haven't previously been commercialized because of the negative reactions of consumers to GM food products. Scientists are engineering beneficial traits into wine yeasts, even though they know they won't be useful for commercial winemaking for the foreseeable future, for two reasons. First, they're betting that public opposition to GM technology will one day recede, at which point they'll be in a good position to move. Second, they can learn a lot of useful information from using these introduced genes, which will then inform conventional breeding and selection programs.

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