Precision farming makes it possible to get different winter wines from the same plantation
| André Julião, FAPESP Agency
Undergraduate student, Augusto Sorrigotti uses a sensor to measure the chlorophyll content and vegetative index of the vines at Casa Verrone, in Itobi. Behind, researcher Luís Henrique Bassoi, from Embrapa Instrumentation, project coordinator; Photo: Guilherme Lima/Embrapa Instrumentation
If you look at the same rows of vines in a wine, you can not find the difference between the plants. nonetheless, even in a small plot, the soil and the vines have a series of variable characteristics that, in turn, produce grapes with different characteristics and, therefore, give rise to different wines. These variations, nonetheless, are evident only with the use of instruments that detect even the most subtle differences in soil and vine leaves.
A project supported by FAPESP and coordinated by scientists from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) will map these areas in two wineries in the interior of São Paulo. Casa Verrone, in Itobi, and Terras Altas, in Ribeirão Preto.
Separate harvests in the same plot have already yielded experimental wines that differ from each other in the two cellars. This is because, depending on soil and plant conditions, grapes can have more or less sugar, acid or phenolic compounds. And even the alcohol strength of the resulting wine can vary.
The study paves the way for the creation of differentiated products, with greater added value and desirable characteristics, without the need to open new planting areas. It also allows for better water and fertilizer management.
The project also helps to strengthen the so-called winter wines, which have gained market share during the last decade and are produced in regions where historically these fine drinks have not been produced, such as São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Grosso and Tocantins.
With the double cutting technique, developed by the Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais (Epamig), instead of harvesting the grapes at the end of summer (between January and March), when there is more rain and diseases, the producers harvest between June and March. August. During this period, there is less rain and a greater range of temperatures, with hot days and cold nights. Ideal for wine grapes.
“We use several measures to evaluate the variability that the vineyard naturally presents so that, based on this, the winemaker can take advantage of a particular characteristic of the wine produced in a certain part of the vineyard. This is what we call precision viticulture”, explains Luís Henrique Bassoi, a researcher at Embrapa Instrumentação, in São Carlos, and project coordinator.
In addition to the São Paulo wineries, the project partners include Epamig, the Grape and Wine unit, in Caldas (MG), which developed the double cutting technique in the early 2000s, and the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the State University of São Paulo. FCA- Unesp), in Botucatu, where Bassoi is professor in the Graduate Program in Agricultural Engineering.
“In traditional management, heavy rains can force an early harvest in the summer, without the grapes completing the entire maturation process. With double pruning, we have moved the maturation period to autumn and winter, when we have in the Southeast region conditions of low atmospheric humidity and high thermal amplitude, which allow maturation to advance “, explains Renata Vieira da Mota, State coordinator. Research program in Viticulture in Epamig and an associate researcher for the project.
According to Mota, the low night temperatures contribute to the balance of the acid content and the formation of phenolic compounds, responsible for the color and structure of the wine. “In this way, we could extract all the qualitative potential of the grape in the process of making winter wine”, he added.
The difference in the cup At Casa Verrone, a 35-hectare property that has been in the family for 40 years, the winemaker Márcio Verrone has cultivated 15 hectares of wine grapes and juice since 2008. With the project started in 2019, supported by FAPESP from 2021, the prospects are better possible
“In the same area, it was possible to divide a part of high quality and another of less. We can, for example, use the first grapes to produce a special wine, even with a precision farming seal or something like that This wine can also be used in a blend [mistura], in order to raise the standard of wine in other areas. The possibilities are many”, projects Verrone.
Ricardo Baldo, director of Vinícola Terras Altas, in Ribeirão Preto, says he already uses wines from the best areas to mix with others. Soon, with the map of the entire property, it is expected to create exclusive products, from the fruits of the best plots of the wine.
“Thanks to precision viticulture, we can better manage the use of water and fertilizers. We know which areas need more, less or none of these resources, making a smart use of them”, he reported.
At Casa Verrone, the two parts of the same area of the Syrah variety, about 1.1 hectares, were identified based on cross-referenced information on soil moisture and apparent electrical conductivity, as well as plant measurements such as porometry (which indicates how much transpiration of leaves), chlorophyll content and vegetative indices (measured by sensors carried by researchers, on board a drone or even on a satellite).
With the results, the area was divided between one that gave high and low vegetative vigor, which is how much biomass the plant produces, among other biochemical characteristics.
Winemaker Isabella Magalhães, from Casa Verrone, presented to Agência FAPESP two experimental wines obtained from areas with high and low vegetative vigor. The so-called microvinification, on a smaller scale than the industrial one, was carried out in Epamig’s Grape and Wine Technological Nucleus, in Caldas (MG).
“Both have a ruby color, nonetheless, more delicate in the wine from the area of high vegetative vigor and more intense in the low one. While in the first I can smell fresh fruit in my nose, and it can take this wine to age in barrels, in the other I have a wine to be drunk less, in all its strength”, compares Magalhães, while tasting the two products..
The project has PhD students Larissa Farinassi and Anderson Pereira, from FCA-Unesp, and interns Victor Nogueira, Gabriel Ferreira, Victor Gambardella and Augusto Sorrigotti, graduates in agronomic engineering from the Centro Universitário Central Paulista (Unicep), in São Carlos.
For Bassoi, in addition to training the workforce, the project brings innovation to the sector, taking precision agriculture, which is very present in crops such as coffee, soy and sugarcane, in viticulture, in which it is still starting in Brazil..
“Our idea is to bring a new parameter so that producers can increase their products in the market, which still has a lot of prejudice with national wines. We have quality products”, concluded the researcher.