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Chr Hansen has launched "the first ever product line of frozen wine cultures" – FroZen.

Chr Hansen was the first company to supply the global wine industry with easy to use malolactic frozen starter cultures for high-quality red wines. The company has now introduced a new range of frozen starter cultures aimed at white wines such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.

“We're very proud to launch this range of frozen malolactic starter cultures, now available both for white wines and red wines," said Laurent Hubert, Marketing Director, Wine Cultures, Chr Hansen. "With the FroZen range, wine producers are guaranteed total process control, robustness in production and shorter production time, which again leads to cost savings.

The FroZen range can reduce the malolactic fermentation time by as much as 40%. Around 265 million hectoliters of wine are produced worldwide (OIV, March 2008), and traditionally 95% of the red wines undergo malolactic fermentation, while only 20% of white wines are produced in this way.

“We will first launch in the Northern hemisphere and our range will be used extensively from September in markets such as France, Germany, Italy, USA and Spain – and more will follow. When the wine season begins in the Southern hemisphere, we'll launch there too – and our expectations are high."

The range is also available in a freeze dried version and all come in the convenient DVS (Direct Vat Set) concept for optimum convenience, control and consistency.