Latest news with #MIPs
Scoop
28-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Winemakers Reclaim Wine Quality And Value With New Molecular Filtration Tech
Press Release – amaea amaeas smart polymers enable US and NZ wine producers to selectively remove unwanted sensory compounds and recover higher-value wine. Hamilton, New Zealand, 28 May 2025 – A new precision wine technology is changing how winemakers address quality challenges and recover value from fault-affected and heavily phenolic wines. amaea, a New Zealand developer of custom-engineered molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), is gaining industry validation for its novel molecular filtration technology for precision wine remediation and palate fining. From premium winemakers in New Zealand to top-tier producers in California, amaea's selective, sustainable filtration solution, launched in late 2023, is being used to remediate and enhance wine quality. The proprietary MIP beads, imprinted with billions of binding sites, selectively target and capture unwanted molecules—such as pyrazines, ethyl phenols, and phenolic compounds responsible for sensory profiles—and remove them while preserving the wine's essential varietal character, color, and flavor. 'Winemakers face real challenges when unwanted, characteristics or impacts appear in their wines, that traditional methods cannot resolve,' says amaea CEO Aiden Tapping. 'Our molecular filtration solution gives them control to target and remove the compounds responsible for undesirable sensory profiles – without stripping away desirable characters. This recovers value, saves wine from being downgraded or discarded, and ultimately protects brand integrity.' Wines tainted by 'off aromas,' such as those caused by stink bugs or pyrazines as well as wines that require significant bitterness management pose a major financial challenge for producers globally. Over the past year, amaea RMx technology for remediating 'off' aromas and wines impacted by frost, pyrazines, Brettanomyces, MOG and other challenges, and amaea PFx technology for palate fining, have supported over 50 unique producers in treating more than 400,000 gallons/ 1.5 million liters of wine, helping them recover an estimated USD$3.5 million/ NZD$6.2 million in wine value in the past 12 months. 'It's fantastic to see the consistent validation from the industry, highlighting the versatility and value of our technology,' says Tapping. 'We've focused on giving some of the top winemakers the confidence to try our technology, even on small volumes. Now, on the back of customer success, we're gearing up for an increase in the volume of wines treated by both existing and new customers as our technology gains market traction.' Smart Polymer, Better Wines: Customer Successes amaea's technology has successfully helped top winemakers recover wine to its intended program, high-quality and value, showcasing a wide variety of commercial customer applications: Jackson Family Wines (US) has successfully trialled amaea to replace single-use fining agents by decreasing bitterness in hard-pressed white wine. Dr Caroline Merrell, Senior Manager of Winemaking Technical Services at Jackson Family Wines says: 'One area where we see a lot of potential is replacing single-use fining agents with reusable media, such as amaea's MIPs. During a recent trial, amaea's MIP treatment decreased bitterness and was preferred sensorially over wines treated with traditional fining agents. The results were impressive and will allow us to simultaneously improve quality in select wines while decreasing waste from single-use inputs.' Cleomont Vineyards (NZ) increased the saleable quality of wine where traditional methods couldn't resolve the issues. Faced with a particularly phenolic 2024 Marlborough Pinot Gris, renowned New Zealand winemaker and grower Digger Hennessy, the owner of Cleomont Vineyards, reduced the wine's excessive bitterness and enhanced its sweetness, with amaea's MIPs selectively capturing the offending phenolic compounds. 'The wine didn't need a huge treatment. It got rid of the very annoying bitterness on the back palate that we were struggling to get out. The MIP treatment made it a lot smoother and now I'm happy with it.' Marisco Vineyards (NZ) remediated a stink bug-affected wine back to its intended program. Marisco Vineyards celebrated an exceptional 2024 vintage. Yet, one block of Pinot Noir faced an unexpected issue when a species of Pentatomidae, commonly known as the Australasian green shield or stink bug, was found among some of the grapes. Traditional techniques for stink bug remediation focus on masking the distinctive vegetative aromas caused by the insects. However, amaea's highly selective technology removes unwanted molecules responsible for the undesirable vegetal and herbaceous traits. 'Having the ability to run wine through MIPs, knowing it won't physically change apart from removing the target molecules, is a massive plus,' says winemaker Alun Kilby, who sees endless potential applications for amaea's technology. Giesen (NZ) used amaea PFx in place of gelatin (a fining agent), to address bitterness in their 0% Merlot. Consulting winemaker Duncan Shouler, former Director of Winemaking at Giesen Group, supports technology, change and innovation in the wine industry to stay relevant and evolve. At Giesen, he saw an opportunity to use amaea PFx in their 0% Merlot. 'Typically, when you remove alcohol from wine, certain traits and characteristics start to stand out. For Merlots, the tannins become prominent, and the warmth and sweetness are lost. For palate fining, gelatin is traditionally added, which, though effective at softening phenolic content, isn't vegan-friendly and isn't entirely selective, which means it removes more than is intended. At Giesen, when introduced to amaea PFx, we saw a technique that enabled us to balance polyphenols without relying on animal additions; it was environmentally conscientious and had the potential to provide a more financially sustainable alternative to traditional fining practices.' Additional Applications: Remediating Smoke-Impacted Wine In late 2023, amaea launched amaea VPx, its smoke remediation solution, which uses tailored MIPs in a one-pass filtration system. A 2024 WINnovation Award winner, amaea VPx technology successfully removes the volatile phenols from smoke-impacted wine to a level that sits below sensory thresholds. To extend its position as a next-generation partner for quality-focused winemakers, amaea's MIP solutions, already commercially used in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, will launch in Australia later this year with a future focus on Europe.
Time of India
22-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Best conservative hybrid mutual funds to invest in April 2025
Many mutual fund advisors believe that 2025 is going to be the year of hybrid funds. Because of the uncertainties regarding the global economy and ever rising Indian stock market, advisors have been advising investors to move cautiously. In such a scenario they believe that investing in hybrid mutual funds - schemes that invest in equity and debt - may serve investors, especially new and inexperienced investors, better. Conservative hybrid mutual funds are the entry to the world of hybrid funds. These schemes invest mostly in debt and a small percent in equity. As per the Sebi norms, conservative hybrid schemes must invest 75-90% in debt instruments and 10-25% in stocks. These schemes are ideal for investors looking to invest a small part of their corpus in equity to earn some extra returns. Conservative hybrid schemes, as the name suggests, are meant for investors with a conservative risk profile. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Best MF to invest Looking for the best mutual funds to invest? Here are our recommendations. View Details » These schemes are similar to erstwhile monthly income plans or MIPs. MIPs were extremely popular at one point. They used to invest a small part of their portfolio in stocks. But their USP, as the name suggests, was regular income in the form of dividends. However, regular dividends stopped when the market got into a bad phase. That was the end of MIPs. The lesson: do not bank on hybrid funds to secure a regular income. If you are looking for regular income, it is always better to opt for a systematic withdrawal plan or SWP. However, be careful about how much you withdraw if you don't want to touch your capital. Always withdraw less than what you make if you want to preserve your capital. Live Events Small, but not tiny equity exposure If you want a ready-made scheme that would help you to take a small exposure to equity, here are our recommended conservative hybrid schemes. However, you should always remember, especially if you are investing in stocks for the first time, that stocks are risky. Stocks do not offer predictable or assured returns year after year. They can also lose money during a downturn. In short, it is the risk you are taking when you are investing in stocks, even if it is a maximum 25% of your investment. Canara Robeco Conservative Hybrid Fund has been in the fourth quartile in the last three months. The scheme had been in the third quartile earlier. Note, the scheme has been part of our recommended funds in the last year, too. You don't have to worry about short-term underperformance. We closely watch the performance of these schemes and update you about it every month. Please follow monthly updates if you are investing in these schemes. Best conservative hybrid funds to invest in April 2025 ICICI Prudential Regular Savings Fund Canara Robeco Conservative Hybrid Fund Kotak Debt Hybrid Fund SBI Conservative Hybrid Fund Here's our methodology: ETMutualFunds has employed the following parameters for shortlisting the Hybrid mutual fund schemes. 1. Mean rolling returns: Rolled daily for the last three years. 2. Consistency in the last three years: Hurst Exponent, H is used for computing the consistency of a fund. The H exponent is a measure of randomness of NAV series of a fund. Funds with high H tend to exhibit low volatility compared to funds with low H. i) When H = 0.5, the series of returns is said to be a geometric Brownian time series. These types of time series are difficult to forecast. ii) When H <0.5, the series is said to mean reverting. iii) When H>0.5, the series is said to be persistent. The larger the value of H, the stronger is the trend of the series 3. Downside risk: We have considered only the negative returns given by the mutual fund scheme for this measure. X = Returns below zero Y = Sum of all squares of X Z = Y/number of days taken for computing the ratio Downside risk = Square root of Z 4. Outperformance i) Equity portion: It is measured by Jensen's Alpha for the last three years. Jensen's Alpha shows the risk-adjusted return generated by a mutual fund scheme relative to the expected market return predicted by the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Higher Alpha indicates that the portfolio performance has outstripped the returns predicted by the market. Average returns generated by the MF Scheme = [Risk Free Rate + Beta of the MF Scheme * {(Average return of the index - Risk Free Rate} ii) Debt portion: Fund Return – Benchmark return. Rolling returns rolled daily is used for computing the return of the fund and the benchmark and subsequently the Active return of the fund. 5. Asset size: For Hybrid funds, the threshold asset size is Rs 50 crore.
