Mike Faulk,* Liliana Carreto, and Lucia Bilro
*Enartis USA, 7795 Bell Rd, Windsor, CA 95492, United States, Windsor, CA, 95492 (michael.faulk@enartis.com)

The wine industry is moving toward digitalization of traditional measuring techniques. Fermentation is the most important stage of winemaking, where the sugar is chemically transformed into alcohol. Constantly monitoring parameters and adjusting them via the addition of enological products, according to readings and determined nutrient requirements, is not only labor-intensive, time-consuming, and inefficient, but also has limited forecasting capabilities. This is a major issue, as the incidence of stuck and arrested fermentations may reach 20%. Tardy, reactive adjustments of the fermentation conditions result in wine losses of both quality and quantity. The high carbon dioxide and water losses have led to the wine industry having the third largest carbon footprint of any industry. These factors combined make more efficient, economically and environmentally sustainable solutions for monitoring fermentation desirable. This solution must be fully integrated and provide real-time values of parameters that are predictive during fermentation. Wineplus is a revolutionary, cost effective, scalable, IoT-based, integrated solution for real-time monitoring of fermentation, with forecasting and preventive capabilities, to achieve sustainable, cost-effective production of high-quality wine. It uses the principle of pressure sensing and advanced AI algorithms to measure density accurately.  It also measures the liquid level for tracking operations and volume monitoring. By implementing this system, Wineplus has already improved the vinification process by reducing time consumption up to 73%, allowing for multi-cellar control. This solution has the potential to reduce by 20% the carbon and water footprint of vinification. Several case studies of tank and barrel fermentations will be presented.

Funding Support: WineGrid and Enartis