(ABC) - A giant stick blender that chops wine grape skins into a pulp could be the next big thing in red wine making.

Dr Angela Sparrow, from the University of Tasmania, has been carrying her blender around in a suitcase, trialling it in pinot noir winemaking in Mildura, Adelaide, Canberra and soon Tasmania.

She says her trial is showing by leaving the red grape skins in contact with the wine, it can improve flavour, colour and even reduce labour in the process.

"I think most of the winemakers just go 'wow'," she said.

"You can see it makes a difference already and I have said to them that the major difference you will see is in six months, then ultimately, as the years progress, five, ten years down the track."

Dr Sparrow said one of the key things winemakers wanted to maintain was the aroma and flavour and the best way to do this was to keep the fruit intact, but once it was crushed 'many of the good bits you want to keep' were lost, including colour.

"Normally with a pinot noir, the colour doesn't last. That's why normally you don't age a pinot for 10 or 15 years, because the colour won't last," she said.

But she said with her mechanism, because more skin tannin came out as well as the colour, it would be more stable down the track.

Dr Sparrow has been working on the project for five years and an inline prototype of the blender is now being trialled in commercial wineries.

She said it had the potential to change some of the 100-year-old practices of the red wine industry.

When red wine is being fermented, wineries must try to keep the skins in contact with the wine, as not to lose flavours into the atmosphere.

"You have to punch down the fermenting pumice each day in order to keep the skins submerged under the liquid," she said.

So, with her device, the skins do not float as much, because they are chopped finer, but flavour and skin tannins are also released faster.