But after a few frustrating years looking for a visual tool that would allow him to map the most troublesome areas of his vineyard near Adelaide, Mr Madgett created a mobile phone and tablet app he describes as a “Google Maps for agriculture”.
The Platfarm app allows farmers to easily integrate soil maps and sensor data into comprehensive diagrams that help them identify areas in the vineyard that need work, thereby cutting costs and improving grape quality. “We have all this imagery [from satellites] but we have had nothing to turn this data into practical action,” he said.
Winemakers have traditionally taken pride in their artisanal skills, with technology in the sector making up a niche part of the start-up arena. Total venture capital funding in wine tech has been just under $1bn since 2000, according to Dealroom, a data and analysis firm focused on tech start-ups. This compares to annual food and agritech financing, which was $20bn in 2019.
But as the effects of climate change, a shrinking labour force and stalling demand take hold, some are opening up to new forms of innovation, from GPS-tracked sniffer dogs to UV light zapping robots.
The robotic vineyard
The growing shortage of labour, a result of tightening global restrictions on working hours and tougher immigration controls, has given rise to a novel solution among winemakers: robots.
At Symington Family Estates, which grows and makes wine in the Douro Valley, Portugal, a solar-powered autonomous robot called VineScout is already being used to shuttle up and down the rows of vines, recording key metrics such as leaf temperature and water availability.
“In monitoring our crops, we need a lot of manpower and boots on the ground,” said Fernando Alves, R&D viticulture manager at Symington, adding that he hopes that the robot will eventually replace the back-breaking manual work of vine-sampling at dawn.
Baron Philippe de Rothschild, which owns the eminent Château Mouton-Rothschild in France, meanwhile, worked with researchers at Naio Technologies to develop Ted, a robot that can weed and spray vineyards. The arch-shaped device, which straddles the vines and travels up and down their rows, is currently used by LVMH’s wine and spirits arm Moët Hennessy.
Further down the line, Symington’s Mr Alves is working with German researchers to adapt a machine harvester that can even pick grapes on steep hills.
Here comes the sun
A bigger hurdle yet may be the looming threat of climate change, which is already having an effect on harvests and grape quality.
With water availability a growing concern, Chris Storm, director of viticulture at Vino Farms in California, decided to tackle the problem of irrigation using innovative sensors from Tule Technology, which measure the amount of water vapour coming off the vines. They then provide water management recommendations to growers based on AI-powered analysis of the data.
“When Tule came up with the evapotranspiration technology, it was a big leap in precision,” said Mr Storm.
The Platfarm app in use at Oli Madgett's vineyard in McLaren Vale, Australia
Climate change will also exacerbate the problem of fungal disease, which thrives in extreme temperatures and results in excessive reliance on pesticides.
Sigfredo Fuentes, associate professor of digital agriculture, food and wine at the University of Melbourne, developed a novel solution to the problem: a digital app linked to a GPS which is attached to dogs trained to sniff out the disease. When an affected plant is identified, the dog knows and sits or crouches nearby to signal its presence.
“If you use a chihuahua it’s going to take forever,” said Prof Fuentes, pointing out that while most dogs can be trained to detect disease, bigger breeds are probably more efficient.
Meanwhile, in the US, David Gadoury, professor of plant pathology and microbe biology at Cornell University, is refining the use of ultraviolet light to kill the fungi. His team will be working with Norwegian start-up Saga Robotics, which is also trialling the technology in Italian vineyards.
‘Cold-blooded data’
Despite their technological efforts, winemakers are still facing an uphill struggle, as younger consumers increasingly turn instead to craft beer and spirits.
According to alcoholic beverage data group IWSR, consumption in the US, the largest wine market, fell in 2019 for the first time in 25 years, because of “changing generational habits”.
“Right now there is oversupply, and consumption has gone down in different markets. It’s putting a lot of pressure on the wineries and in turn the growers,” said Uri Rosenzweig, head of product at Israeli agritech start-up Trellis, uses AI to analyse data and predict production yields and harvest timing. and counts among its clients Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), the Australian group behind Penfolds and Wolf Blass.
“[The wine industry] doesn’t have a choice but to turn to technology,” he added.
For some winegrowers, though, machines are not just more efficient than humans — they can also make better decisions.
“Growers themselves have a lot of emotional bias. It’s important to use cold-blooded data to drive the analysis to give the tools they need to make decisions,” said Mr Rosenzweig.
The use of technology in viticulture also helps reduce the waste of resources, such as water and fertilisers, adding to a winemaker's sustainability credentials.
“[Millennials] are on a quest for a more sustainable planet, and we want to meet them,” said Chris Byrne, a vineyard owner in Australia’s top wine region Riverland. He is leading a group of growers working with the University of Adelaide and state-backed authority Wine Australia on a $5m project to create a fully automated vineyard using artificial intelligence.
Ultimately, though, the highest goal of each grower is to create a quality product. “The final object is to improve the level of wine,” said Symington’s Mr Alves.
