HI-TECH VINEYARD IS BORN IN TUSCANY: GRAPES MONITORED THROUGH SPECIAL SENSORS, AND ONCE BOTTLED, AN “INTELLIGENT” LABEL TELLS CONSUMERS OF THE HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PRODUCT BY PHONE

A hi-tech vineyard is born. A technological system that is innovative and complete, that follows grapes from the vineyard to the winery, and, once the wine is bottled, allows consumers to know all about it through a special “intelligent” label.
This, in short, is the project that is being realized by the Tenuta di Poggio Gagliardo di Montescudaio, thanks to a collaboration with the estate, the Sant’Anna High School of Pisa, and the programmers of Synapsis in Livorno and Modulgraf in Castel Franco di Sotto (Pisa), the leading company in creating labels for wine bottles. This innovative hi-tech vineyard is in an experimental phase at Montepaldi a San Casciano, which is owned by the University of Florence.

The heart of the system is found in the vineyards where special sensors that have been placed there send information to a server on the climate, humidity, temperature, stress, and the needs of the plants and their precious fruit. The information arrives directly onto the producer’s computer, who can then continuously check the parameters. It is a way to immediately know all of the exact needs of the plants, and to alert a producer if the harvest is potentially at risk like, for example, when pathogenic molds form. The system is also capable of indicating exactly where eventual interventions must be made.
Once the grapes are harvested, the system allows for the monitoring of the various phases in the winery. Then, onto the bottling, where there are special labels that have been created by Modulgraf of Daniele Barontini, which permit the traceability and security of the product. This is all thanks to a micro antenna that is capable of connecting to a terminal like, for example, a Palm Pilot or a cellular phone with infrared, and then recount the history of the wine, the vineyard and the methods with which the product was created.

“It is an integrated system that is capable of following, step by step, the entire production process of wine” – explained Daniele Barontini of Modulgraf and David Guerri of Synapsis, to WineNews – “a valid technological aid for producers and consumers that represents the future that is to come and that which we continue to hear spoken of ever more often in the world of wine, and in other sectors as well”.