Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Wine Monitoring
Wynken de Word writes "An article in Canada's Globe and Mail says 'vineyard owner Don King is coaxing 30,000 plants to grow grapes of exactly the right colour, size and sweetness to produce great ice wine and other fine vintages...with the help of judicious watering, a knowledge of the age-old art of viniculture -- and electronic sensing devices linked together in a wireless network.' Using an Intel-based TinyOS and TinyDB, multiple sensing devices monitor grape micro climates and help determine irrigation and frost patterns."
In fact it is illegal for many regions of France to water vineyards.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Actually, this day is a lot closer than you might think. Do a Google on "wine reverse osmosis", and you'll see what I mean. Reverese osmosis allows the vintner to selectively remove water and sugar so as to adjust the brix, acidity, and concentration of volatiles, tannins, etc. Nobody produces crappy years anymore, because even good vintages are run through a reverse osmosis machine to make them better and more consistent... more "mass produced". Every year is a good year, although some are still outstanding.
The grape varieties are being modified with modern agronomic breeding tools, including genetic modifications, to make them better able to produce decent juice from poorer soils/sites. As with beer, the yeast strains used in wine making are being controlled with sophisticated molecular biology tools to get the mixes of micromolar end products of fermentation that make for an interesting wine. Precision agriculture has been used in high-value crops like wine grapes for many years, it's just that now it's starting to be wirelessly networked and automated.
Only small-volume boutique wines are made by Francois/Guisseppe relying solely on the wisdom his father handed down to him from his father before him.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Sorry, the SE Australian Cabs are run of the mill at best.
All this, Oooh Ahhh it's a Cab from Chile, or, it's a local wine from Upstate Wherever. Or, "Oh no, this is a Shiraz"...
Don't kid yourself.
They still can't touch a medium priced CAb from Sonomoa or Napa. I mean, Napa or Sonoma Grapes, not, "made in Napa" which means the grapes could've been shipped in from the mid-coast.
The Californian product is even better than most French Bordeaux. You have to go to a First Growth to get something really, really good. Then you're talking $200/bottle new, and you have to wait a few years to get the real value.
Me? Yeah, I've got a few bottles. I buy by the case to get the discount. Probably have about 25 cases downstairs. Some bought new in 1989. Yummy.
I dont know where you come from or what what wine you drink, but large numbers of wines are only made from one grape variety. SOme wine varieties are almost never blended (eg Sauvignon blanc, Riesling, often Pinot noir). But this in no way means they taste the same. A lot of the taste depends on how you grow the grape and produce the wine.
This 'all tastes the same' has already been identified as a problem by many wine purists. The Bordeaux flavour paradigm being copied by everyone from Oz to Chile to the US and on and on has brought on a homogenous affect to wine making. Not to mention the 'Parker effect' whereby taster/critic Robert Parker scores a wine well by his (impressive) palate and the wine immediately goes through the roof in terms of price. This has made wine makers all over the world scurrying to produce wines they hope will appeal to his taste thus enabling them to command great prices. Wine is already being mass produced everywhere - its not the quantity of grape that is so much the problem you appear to be referring to but the wine maker and the flavour he's targetting that are more of a problem for those who crave variety and maybe mor of the 'way things used to be'.
The Californian product is even better than most French Bordeaux.
True, there are millions of gallons of French Bordeaux wines out there that just suck. But there are some nices ones out there as well. Chateau D`Armailhac is a 5th Growth, and for it's price it's quite excellent.
To be fair, California makes LOTS of mediocre Cab Sauvs as well. In fact, in these past few years there has been just TOO many grapes grown in california, resulting in a grape glut. Some of those grapes are just going to be used to make industrial alcohol (Italy does the same with their grapes). But a lot of these grapes are used to make cheap, terrible mass-produced wine (or brandy, or vodka).
My personal opinion is that Cali Cabs in general have too much tannin. Take a look at this year's Silver Oak. Bleah, I hate that. However, my favorite Cali Cab is Stags Leap SLV. I guess I could always age the wines, let the tannins soften up, but I hate the wait. :)
'Icewine' or 'Eiswine' is a German thing, using Reisling grapes left on the vine past their prime (spatlesen or late picked) and through the first frost, then picked frozen. The ice is pressed from the frozen grapes, leaving behind a very high-solids, high-sugar must.
Executive summary: this stuff is going to be super super sweet . Consistency (and sugar content) of maple syrup. Not to be served with meat or fish. Most likely served in a small apertif glass after a meal.
Personally, I hate wines of this type - I'd much rather open a good Zin or Shiraz - but hey, to each his own.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
age-old art of viniculture
That's viticulture...