Meet Wall-Ye, a robot designed to be the perfect vineyard worker. He doesn't get tired, or try and drink the good stuff at lunch. Instead, this little guy uses GPS and photo-recognition software to remember every individual vine. Wall-Ye uses this information to check for diesease and monitior a host of variables, including ground temperature and moisture. These tasks are vital to producing any kind of quality wine. His French inventors plan to develope Wall-Ye further, so that eventually pruning and picking will be possible.
The wine industry has so far largely shunned the automation which has taken over most other areas of farming. Its true that mechanical harvesting is increasingly popular, but this method is clumsy and requires sorting to achieve a quality finish. However, imagine a cousin of Wall-Ye which could pick each individual bunch at the peak of its ripeness, day or night. Far more consistant fruit could be harvested by many wineries and in turn better wine can be produced.
Many in the wine industry hold onto the traditional way of doing things with a firm grasp. The idea of having a robot picking grapes, let alone making wine itself, is deeply worrying to them. But technological progress cannot be held at the gate forever. The wine world of today is obsessed with quality and consistency. There is only so far this can go before human limits are reached. I for one am fascinated to see what will happen when technology and winemaking are truly integrated. No matter what, it should be interesting.
Will
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