April 16, 2026 – 12:00 – 1:00 – How wildfire smoke exposure may change the aroma of wines

The aim of the presentation is to give a quick overview of past and current research in smoke taint; the current PhD project, illustrating how it may contribute to the research field – the project is an exploratory analysis, looking for broader chemical changes in grapes and wines resulting from wildfire smoke exposure; and current mitigation and treatment strategies.

Presenters: Carien Catlett; PhD Student University of British Columbia Okanagan, Irving Barber Faculty of Science, Chemistry.

Supervised by Dr Wesley Zandberg

Bios: Carien Catlett is enrolled as a PhD student at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr Wesley Zandberg. She obtained her master’s degree in South Africa in the field of Chemometric applied to Spectroscopic data in the field of fluoro-carbon chemistry. Carien and her family moved to the Okanagan in 2023 from Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.