As the 2026 vintage moves from vineyard to cellar, winemakers are readying themselves to craft the finished product that will define this year in wine.
Given what we know about the smaller than average harvest this year, the grapes appear to be smaller in size with higher levels of sugar, alcohol, and concentrated flavors, requiring careful management to achieve desired outcomes.
Fortunately for the winemaking community, Steric has developed a commercial beverage processing technology that has revolutionized the industry by using controlled electromagnetic fields to refine the sensory characteristics of wine without additives or filtration.
Steric works by using precisely controlled electromagnetic processing to alter molecular interactions within the wine matrix and is effective on full-alcohol, low-alcohol and no-alcohol wines.
“The Steric process takes liquid and passes it through a chamber, exposing it to an electromagnetic frequency for a fraction of a second, which positively reorients the molecular structure,” explains Bill Fay, Steric’s Chief Executive Officer. “Ours is a clean technology, eliminating the need for additives or fining agents while maintaining and enhancing the varietal character of high-quality wine.”
The Steric Process, which has been painstakingly developed and perfected over the last eight years, is a hugely beneficial breakthrough to the wine industry as a whole right now, especially in light of today’s tight operating margins.
Benefits of the Steric process include:
- Non-additive processing: Steric treatment does not add fining agents, flavor compounds, masking agents or other materials to the wine.
- No filtration or separation: the Steric process does not rely on physically removing compounds from the wine, which can potentially eliminate desirable components along with the others.
- Preserve wine character: Steric processing can be calibrated to integrate the desirable sensory characteristics, while maintaining varietal expression, aroma, mouthfeel and structure, reflecting the winemaker’s intended style.
- Scalable to commercial volumes: once treatment parameters are established, the process can be applied to commercial production volumes without reformulation of the wine or changes to the winemaking process.
“As a winemaker, minimizing reductive methods during vinification is always the goal,” notes Bobby Moy, winemaker at RJP Wines in Napa, California. “The Steric process has allowed me to cut my fining usage by 50 percent, which directly lowers my cost of goods, and in today’s market, savings are everything. Less fining also means my wines experience less shock, so I can bring them to market faster and with more confidence. The result is a product that delivers stronger value at its price point, and that makes me more competitive.”
Steric is one of the Featured Exhibitors at the 14th annual WIN Expo, the North Coast wine industry trade show and conference, taking place on December 3, 2026 from 9 AM to 4 PM at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California.
Representatives from Steric will be at Booth 319 at the WIN Expo to demonstrate how the Steric process works and to answer questions about their technology.
For more information, go to: https://steric.com.
Visit Steric Systems at Booth 319 at the North Coast Wine Industry Expo
December 3, 2026 · 9 am–4 pm
Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, CA
