Heard from my local salesperson that Sentia has halted business in the US as of yesterday I believe and are looking for someone to purchase them. This salesperson was let go yesterday without warning - and he mentioned that if you do use this device you might want to consider stocking up on supplies.
I reached out to Vintner’s Vault in Paso and placed an order - only to be called to tell me that they do not have any in stock; had placed and order last week.; and don’t expect to get any in for the foreseeable future.
What a bummer - great little device for sure . . .
My only complaint was that I was always a bit frustrated with the short best-before dates on the strips - always ended up with multiple packs I couldn’t use.
Agreed - BUT if you were able to speak to a sales rep, you could get a more current code and use THAT with the older strips - and that seemed to work okay
This is a shame. A nifty little tool for people who don’t want to spend the money or labor on beefier enzymatic analyzers. Do we know why? Was this a tariff casualty at all?
From what I understand, this company has multiple products - Sentia was doing well but other products were pulling down their overall numbers. I do know they are still looking for a buyer . . .
If you have not heard, Sentia has been bought and are getting ready to start accepting orders soon. We received word from Vinmetrica that they are expecting their first shipment to the US sometime in December.
That’s unfortunate. An adjacent winery demoed a unit in 2024 at our facility and really liked it for the convenience of measuring FreeSo2. I hope they find new investors to breathe new life into the company as well as servicing the current units on the market and keeping the reagents available.
Thats great news - thanks for the update. I’ve had a unit at the winery for a year or two now - sometimes I have to check results against a lab standard, or use two strips on the same sample to confirm, but overall it’s been a time and money saver. Very frustrating this past year to have the device and no access to strips or solutions.
The original developer and owner of Sentia was the Australian company Universal Biosensors (UBI). My understanding is that the new private group that acquired it includes several key people from the original research & development and production teams at Sentia. Vinmetrica (based out of California) is the original authorized reseller and distributor of the Sentia device and the associated test strips for the North American market. I’m hoping prices stay consistent as well. I’ll update if I hear anything more.
Vinmetrica is in Carlsbad, CA. I used their SC-300 at an old lab, which is basically ripper with a conductivity meter so you don’t have to eyeball the color change. Simple piece of kit but worked nicely enough. They were always good to work with - responsive, helpful, quick turnaround on orders.
Have you seen the wine chek absorbance one unit? Anyone used this ?We use a Sentia at another winery i work with and i was planning on another unit and then I saw this at laffort.
I haven’t used it but it looks like it’s basically a small spec that you use traditional enzymatic kits with. I’m sure it’ll do the job. If you already have a spec it doesn’t look very useful. If you don’t, it could be good if the user interface is friendly.
