Tech Innovation in the Wine Industry, Pt 2
As I discussed last week, winemakers used to rely on instinct and tradition. Here’s another quick look at how those in the wine industry are turning to tech (like data analysis) and innovation in winemaking.
Wine Blockchain Technology – We live in an increasingly-digital world, so it was only a matter of time before the old-school art of collecting entered the realm of pixels and binary code. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are grabbing a lot of headlines now, and they’ve arrived in the wine business, too. An NFT is a unit of data that is stored on a blockchain, representing a ‘digital asset’ that is unique and is therefore not interchangeable. We’ve seen a lot of NFTs in recent times, from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet (which sold for $2.9 million) to artist Kevin Abosch’s virtual artwork ‘Forever Rose’ (which sold for $1 million). Now wineries are doing the same. French winemaker Chateau Darius, for example, has recently begin selling ‘digital bottles’ of its Bordeaux for more than £300 apiece. But more on this next week.
Robotics in the Vineyard and Winery – With shortages of manual labor, tightening restrictions on migrants and herbicides, and increasing awareness of the disadvantages of using heavy tractors in vineyards (compaction and emissions), there will be an interest in agricultural robots. The first robot was developed three years ago and, is equipped with a central platform that spans the vine rows with modular arches allowing it to adapt to a variety of vines (narrow, high, etc). Weeding tools, blades, disks, and ploughs can be attached to the new central toolholder, which has a parallelogram lift. Two tools can be combined at the same time. The power of the lightweight machine has been increased so it can reach speeds of 5 km/h and tackle slopes. There are other uses like fertilizing and harvesting but I envision, in the next 3-5 years, robotic systems will have a far greater impact on the vine and wine sector. Vineyard workers are often tied up with repetitive and physically demanding tasks in the vineyard when their skills could be put to better use elsewhere.
Ted, The Robot: Chateau Clerc Milon is where a robot named ‘Ted’ has been brought in to help with soil cultivation and vine weeding. According to the chateau, “As well as helping to make our vineyard work less arduous and respecting the soil, it will reduce our dependency on fossil energies and the harm caused by traditional agricultural machinery.”
Vitirover: Saint-Emilion, France is world famous and steeped in tradition. Vitirover was developed as a fully autonomous lawnmower powered by solar energy. About twenty of these robotic mowers are in use in the vineyards. This year, Vitirover will deliver 200 more robots, for use along railway tracks or in a solar farm. The main benefit of the robot is that it is environmentally friendly and helps to make organic wine. The use of the robot in the vineyards makes pesticides like glyphosate unnecessary. In addition, the robot protects the soil by avoiding the compaction that may be caused by tractors or horses.
Slopehelper: an autonomous electric vehicle that goes a few steps forward by performing a range of vineyard operations like mulching, mowing, spray and side-trimming. It can integrate with software to communicate with the vehicle remotely, stream video from the camera and monitor weather conditions through an onboard weather station.
R2T2 is partnering with a winery to develop a pruning robot that can tackle vine-training systems only workable by humans like bush vines.
Understanding Aging: The aging of wines is a process used to preserve wine but also to enhance its properties. It is a process of great interest, mainly because of the additional properties it adds to wines and because of its economic implications. Historically, barrels have been employed for centuries for preserving and aging wine due to their resistance and relative impermeability. In general terms, the wine aging process can be divided into two phases: oxidative and reductive aging. Oxidative aging traditionally takes place in barrels while reductive phase occurs in the bottle. During both processes, oxygen plays a fundamental role as well as other factors, for instance: temperature, light, bottle position, microbial growth, or storage time. Likewise, during the aging process, a series of chemical reactions take place influencing the composition and organoleptic profile of wine. Given that it is a central tenet in the creation of fine wine, winemakers need to better understand the process.
Space Wine : after a year in space aging, a dozen cylinders of Bordeaux’s Petrus and 320 vine canes returned home. Researchers say the jaunt into orbit energized the vines, helping them to grow faster while the wine experts said the wine tasted more developed. Researchers are especially interested to learn how being in orbit affects the sedimentation and bubbles of the aging process. Findings from the experiment could eventually be used to understand taste enhancement and flavor conservation here on Earth. Climate change will require plants like grapes to adapt to harsh conditions. By understanding how grapes respond to weightlessness, scientists could help develop technology to grow more resilient, sturdier plants on Earth.
Underwater Wine: I first heard of underwater wine on a recent trip to Portugal. We went to Ervideira, where the tasting room associate poured us a side by side tasting of their wines – one aged underwater and the other aged in a cellar. My partner, Dave, loved the wine aged under water. I couldn’t detect a difference, but I had 5 of each shipped home anyway! In theory, aging under water offers a consistent low temperature, additional pressure and slight rocking from the current to create a different aging experience. Regardless of the science, this technique also offers a marketing opportunity. Some experts have assessed the wine compared to test batches of the same vintages aged in cellars and the notes of the underwater wine are distinct and exciting. Some of the enhanced attributes of underwater aged wine include greater intensity of color, a milder change in the wine’s hue over time, a greater intensity of aromatics with accentuated fruit and floral notes- essentially a young but loud wine – which is clearly enough for a surcharge on the wine
Some producers have embraced broad-scale mechanization in the vineyard and winery, others have gone to more extreme lengths. As mentioned last week, the world’s highest- tech producers are turning to capital-B Big data and computer science; they’re harnessing sorting tables that analyze grapes on a three-dimensional level; and they’re designing every aspect of their vineyards and winemaking facilities so that their wines will arrive in bottle with a predetermined style.
One producer stands above all on this stage: Napa Valley’s Palmaz Vineyards. Palmaz’s end goal and most significant achievement is not revolutionizing what wine is, but utilizing forward-thinking technology to craft a product that is almost imperceptibly different from other big, bold Napa wines. In an industry that glorifies ancient methods and craftsmanship, why go to such technological lengths to eliminate much of what the winemaking world considers integral to wine?
Is a winery’s pursuit of perfection — its quest to stamp out every flaw that may arise on a grape’s journey from vineyard to bottle — ultimately worth it if it risks losing the intangible romanticism of traditional winemaking? Or is that very argument just a cleverly calculated concept, conceived to excuse the industry’s inertia?
Beyond the pursuit of perfection, there are any number of reasons why a winery might adopt technology — even if they don’t have the means to dig out an 18-story building from the side of a mountain or design a custom AI program. Most notable among them: well documented labor shortages, to which the ever-improving accuracy and quality of machine harvesting seems like a no-brainer. There’s also the climate crisis to consider, which will require its own large-scale shake-up in how the greater industry thinks and acts — with or without the aid of technology.