Françoise tests two categories of alcoholic beverages: the wine, beer, and spirits distributed throughout the SAQ’s network of stores, and wines from the SAQ’s own bottling plant in Montreal. In fact, she performs tests in, and with, industrial quantities!

"There are three aspects to quality control: the visual, olfactory (taste and smell), and chemical.Tasters take care of the first two, while lab technicians like me perform the appropriate chemical tests. For example, we determine the percentage of alcohol, total acidity, volatile acidity, pH level, sugars, preservatives, acids, and so on," she says.

With about 5000 products on the SAQ list, technicians in the quality control division perform some 150 tests and tastings every day. And that’s not counting tests on materials and containers, such as bottles, labels, corks, capsules, and cases.

Françoise works mainly in the lab at the SAQ bottling plant. She performs quick tests on wine samples taken from the bottling line to ensure there’s been no contamination.

"When no yeast or bacteria are found in the samples, I give the production foreman the green light to proceed with bottling. However, if some yeast is found, the foremen are told to clean the lines before bottling can resume." Tests are performed at least three times a day, sometimes even on an hourly basis.