How 'wizards' are helping winemakers

Researchers from La Trobe University have developed a smoke sensor that has the potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wine production.

The university’s Wine Industry Smoke Detectors (WISDs) — or ‘wizards’ — track smoke events like bushfires and burn-offs around vineyards. Using this data, they then advise winegrowers whether the smoke is likely to taint their grapes — and if they need to discard their season’s harvest, or use winemaking techniques to remove the taint.

The sensors were trialled during the 2020 bushfires that devastated wine regions across Australia’s east coast. Data from this period revealed that $100–$150 million worth of grapes were unnecessarily discarded over unfounded concerns they were tainted by smoke.

Australian agtech provider Goanna Ag will be commercialising the WISDs over the next two years. During this time the hardware and algorithm will be further validated in real-world fire events, with the network of WISDs expanded to other wine regions across Australia.

Professor Ian Porter, a researcher from the School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment at La Trobe, leads the team that developed the WISDs and the risk model over the last decade. He said the research demonstrated that vineyards could avoid significant losses of grapes that winegrowers had previously believed were ruined.

“Growers think that all smoke causes smoke taint, but data collected by our team has for the first time globally linked the amount of fresh smoke needed in vineyards to smoke taint in the bottle. This has been the Holy Grail of research that’s now being solved,” Porter said.

“This sensor has the potential to save a heap of grapes they would usually throw away, which can be financially and emotionally devastating for winegrowers. It’s one of the reasons we developed the WISDs.”

To calculate risk ratings for smoke taint, the wizards draw from a vast database of smoke, grape and wine data collected by La Trobe during more than 70 controlled burns and eight major bushfires.

The data enables links to be made between smoke dose and smoke composition, phenol levels in grapes and wine, and the sensory outcomes in wines. It also incorporates the critical risk factors for smoke taint, including burn conditions, distance from the burn, grapevine variety and the timing of exposure during the season.

This information is transmitted, along with factors such as temperature and humidity, to a central server that calculates a traffic light risk rating for smoke taint. The risk rating is communicated to vineyard managers in real time via a mobile phone app and can also be accessed via a dedicated website.

Porter said the findings showed that in the vast majority of cases, winegrowers need not be concerned that smoke from planned controlled burns to reduce fire risk might taint their grapes.

“The WISD is an amazing breakthrough for Australian growers and wine producers. It provides the sector with an extremely valuable tool to use during any smoke event to determine whether there is a problem or not,” he said.

“Having results in real time greatly reduces stress for growers and winemakers and allows them to market their grapes and produce wine with confidence.”

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