Every industry is in the midst of figuring out the benefits and drawbacks of using artificial intelligence. In wine, its potential application is vast. From vineyard management to winemaking and marketing, AI’s impact can be felt at every level of the wine trade, influencing the way we grow, make, buy, sell and consume wine. While some will be sceptical about its use, many are welcoming its development and use it as a tool to help us work smarter, not harder.
“People in every industry should embrace AI to help shape it, and to evolve it in a way that meets human needs and values,” believes Pam Dillon, co-founder of Preferabli, an AI-driven wine recommendation app.
“I find this to be especially true for the wine industry. Our industry is older than many others, with a legacy of storytelling we want to preserve. Change from developments in AI is inevitable, with great potential for positive outcomes. The conversation in our industry should be about shaping outcomes that make our lives easier and better.”
AI can also be applied in the winery to make more efficient decisions, says Napa winemaker Matt Crafton, of Montelena. “AI is a tool,” he says.
“The tools I’m interested in are those that allow me to make better decisions, more quickly. The benefit to that framework is that, in theory, AI can be applied almost anywhere; the challenge is that AI is only as good as its training models. And most of those are still in their infancy.”
With this in mind, here are five areas of the wine trade that AI is most significantly impacting, and some the projects pushing its use further.
1.Viticulture and winemaking
Managing a vineyard traditionally involves the manual monitoring of soil, climate, irrigation and pest control. Now, AI can take over much of this work. Napa’s Chateau Montelena, owned by the Barrett family, is just one winery using AI in the vineyard. It monitors its vines in real time using AI to measure water usage to provide data on vine health and water needs, driving irrigation decisions that improve vine quality, conserve water, and save energy. It also uses AI and aerial images to monitor variations in ripening and stress across different vineyard blocks, allowing for targeted interventions.
“My hope is that the implementation of AI in the short term will augment many of the simple, repeatable tasks that compose winemaking,” says Matt Crafton, Chateau Montelena’s winemaker. “After that, who knows? For consumer-driven, data-derived wines that populate our grocery store shelves, AI could easily assume a greater role in final blend characteristics and composition. In my world, where creativity can’t be quantified, I’ll be happy with more precise, more actionable data.”
The issue of smoke taint is also being tackled by AI. Earlier this year, Tastry – an AI-powered robot that can ‘taste’ wines – explained how it’s technology was being used to tackle smoke taint in California. Tastry is able to identify changes in chemistry among grape varieties that might indicate smoke taint, so that winemakers can make decisions more quickly about the sale and marketing of a wine that might be affected and its potential evolution.
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