- By Stav Dimitropoulos and Will Smale
- business reporters
Image source, Kara Maraden
Kara Maraden is responsible for a large number of vineyards.
Director of viticulture for the large American wine company Foley Family Farms, she is responsible for more than 5,200 acres (2,000 hectares) of vines, spread over 1,000 miles of California and Oregon.
Obviously he can’t be everywhere at once, but thanks to artificial intelligence technology, Maraden can remotely check the water needs of each vineyard from his laptop.
“I can go online and see what irrigation is needed in Santa Barbara, 300 miles away,” says Maraden, who lives in Napa, northwest of San Francisco.
While the water needs of vines would once have been judged by human calculations and judgment, Foley now uses sensors made by Tule Technologies, a California-based irrigation company.
The sensors, which look like mini weather stations, are placed among the vineyards. They measure humidity levels, temperatures, wind speeds and other environmental variables.
All of this data is then fed into Tule’s artificial intelligence software system, which has been trained to calculate how much moisture will evaporate from both the soil and the vines under different weather conditions. The AI then determines how much watering the vines need and when, and informs vineyard managers via an in-app notification.
“We are always on the ground,” adds Ms. Maraden. “But data helps us make informed decisions based on science, rather than just feelings. Feelings aren’t bad, but we like using data.”
Foley Family Farms, along with its similarly named sister company, Foley Family Wines, produce American wines under 23 different brands. Maraden says AI irrigation sensors “have improved grape quality and consistency.”
Tom Shapland, CEO of Tule, says another benefit of sensors is that they can help overcome labor shortages. “AI monitors the vineyard 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
Tule also creates an AI-powered app called Tule Vision, which can determine the thirst of vines after the human user records a few-minute video of them. The AI was trained with hundreds of images of vines with different water needs.
Other suppliers of AI-powered vineyard monitoring equipment include US tech giant Cisco and smaller companies Ceres Imaging and Bloomfield AI.
Once the grapes are harvested for winemaking, they are taken to the winery for fermentation. In this case too, AI is intervening.
California-based technology company Tastry is creating an AI-powered app that helps winemakers make wine that will appeal to a wide range of consumers. The software does this by analyzing the chemical composition of a wine and quickly comparing it to a database of the taste preferences of 248 million wine drinkers in the United States.
Taste tests for everything from a wine’s sugar levels to acidity and tannins. The latter are bitter and astringent compounds that come from the skin, seeds and stems of grapes.
The idea is that Tastry can help winemakers better blend the final wines of numerous base wines, varying the percentage of each until a popular flavor profile is achieved.
Alexandre Remy, managing partner and winemaker at Atlas Wine Company, a California-based wine brand, describes Tastry as his “GPS system.”
“If I want to create my red blend, I choose from 10 different vineyards,” says Remy. “This is where AI really shines. It helps me determine my goal, whether I want to attract a younger audience or perhaps an audience that prefers a competitor’s wine.
“I can enter my parameters into the system and it will offer mix suggestions based on that.”
Image source, Alexandre Rémy
Monika Christmann is a professor of oenology (the science of winemaking) at the Hochschule Geisenheim University in Germany. She says wineries with high volumes and needing consistency year after year might find AI particularly useful.
However, he also warns that the interaction between the different components of wine is difficult to predict and is not yet fully understood by AI.
For wine traditionalists, the use of AI in winemaking, whether in the vineyard or the winery, is anathema. They argue that it destroys the craftsmanship that can make wine so special.
“No algorithm can truly understand the complex interplay between climate, soil and grape varieties that give wine its subtlety and character,” says Jonathan Kleeman, executive head sommelier at UK restaurant company Tom Sellers Story Group. .
“Nor can he appreciate the aesthetics of balance, structure and aroma that distinguish an exceptional vintage. Talking about minerality, acidity or fruitiness of wine makes no sense to a machine. Real winegrowers trust their palate, not [computer] processors.”
Image source, Foley Family Wines
Tom Ashworth, chief executive of wine retailer Yapp Brothers, says that if he were making wine he wouldn’t use AI.
“I suppose the extent to which the winemaker allows AI to take over the decision-making, replacing hundreds of years of experience, depends on the risk appetite of the domain and the accuracy of the AI itself.
“Currently, I would not hand over decision-making about key processes in winemaking to AI, nor would I let AI manage customer services without supervision.”
Back in California, Maraden responds that AI is meant to help human winemakers, not replace them. “We are boots on the ground, we ourselves are always in the vineyard,” she says.
“What AI is really about [in wine] is making more informed decisions based on science.
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