Vinteloper’s Urban Winery project

Posted on by
Reply

David Bowley of Vinteloper Wines isn’t afraid of a new idea. Witness his experiment with a “fold-up” winery in the depths of his home city, Adelaide. In an effort worthy of Renew Adelaide, DB has taken over the courtyard of a retail premise that has been empty for months and turned it into a working winery for his hand-crafted wines. 

It’s only there for the month of March (which is about the length of the Vinteloper vintage), at which point it “folds down” and steals away. In the meantime, the public can go in, see a winemaker at work, see wines crushed and fermentation in progress (some lucky folk even jumped in with the grapes to help stomp the juice!). When I visited, the Odeon Riesling and Pinot Noir were on the go – ask David about his philosophy for these wines!

It’s also a cellar door of sorts – $15 will get you a flight of five wines (current releases; out of a menu of seven choices), with a reasonably generous pour for a tasting – compared to most bar prices for Vinteloper wines, this represents good value. One caveat: this has been popular enough to threaten stock levels, so as the month progresses the menu may have to be slimmed down. My favourites: the Adelaide Hills Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir … but they all stand up well (the Touriga Nacional is interesting, and would be great with some food, like most Iberian-style wines).

As befits its usually-vacant state the space is a little grungy, but some interesting and eclectic accessories and furniture make it welcoming. This is a great space for the idea (I’ve been looking at the place for ages, and it’s got some great potential for a bunch of wine and food related projects), and I almost hope it remains empty so David can repeat the experiment next year!

Quick facts: it’s at the rear of 188 Grenfell Street (entry behind the Crown & Anchor pub on Union St; or off Grenfell), and open from about midday to midnight every day until the 31st March. It’s licensed every day (it was originally only for the weekends, but public demand won that argument!), and there’s coffee as well (DB says he’s getting better at that … ).

Oh … you can get Vinteloper skate decks too :)

Another vintage down …

Posted on by

… and an interesting one it was. Given its difficulties, I wonder whether better planning may have made a difference to some wineries :)

On that – we have been making some changes to the registration process for Harvest-Plan that we hope to unveil soon. The differences are particularly relevant to the Individual Subscription, with a menu of functionality and payment choices. The current hold-up is around payment systems – we were hoping to go with a local payment gateway (and we expect to get there eventually), but the current thinking is that Paypal will allow us to get moving more quickly.

And we want to do that, because we know that many of the people responsible for next vintage will soon be thinking about it, and what needs to be done … and we’d like to be in a position to help!

 

Come on Chardy, let’s go party – Chardonnay Day

Posted on by

It’s official – 26th May is now World Chardonnay Day. I’m not entirely sure that it was celebrated everywhere, but Australia and the USA turned it on to honour the venerable chardonnay grape. To get a feel for the action, check out the Twitter hashtag.

Here in Adelaide, we all got together at Qwoff HQ in Hindmarsh to try some of over 100 chardonnays with a bunch of like-minded folk. I took some notes (and some fairly dodgy label pics) to share with you. As with last year’s Rose Revolution tasting, there are some caveats to keep in mind when reading these:

  • I’m a wine drinker … not a wine maker, wine critic or wine writer. I drink wine because I enjoy it, not because I’m an “expert”
  • Following from that – although I was only having very small serves, I didn’t spit any out … which potentially affected the later samples :)
  • Everything I say about the wines is subjective – it’s one guy’s opinion, and you don’t have to share it
  • It’s what I tasted and smelt in the moment – there’s a lot of things affecting the senses at any given time, and I might have a different opinion of a wine in other circumstances.

As you’ll see (hopefully) from the photos, these weren’t wanky blind tastings, they were informal samples taken in the company of a bunch of friendly folk, so the whole thing was a lot of fun, and we got to try (collectively, not necessarily individually) a lot of chardonnay.

A little personal history: I started drinking wine regularly in the mid-1970′s – sweeter whites (e.g. late-picked rieslings) and claret-style reds mainly (and I’m not ashamed to admit, quite a lot of port :) ). From the late 1980s through much of the 1990s the white wine of choice was chardonnay – BIG oaky, creamy chardonnay. Sometimes so oaky you felt you were chewing pine … and we loved it. Of course the wine fashion wheel turned, sauvignon blanc got popular, and chardonnay (despite still being one of the country’s biggest volume grapes) fell out of favour with us (I DID say it was a personal history – somebody obviously kept drinking it!). I got to the point where I wouldn’t open a bottle of chardonnay – over the last few years I’ve only drunk it when it’s been served to me. Paradoxically I’ve enjoyed it on those occasions, but I seem to have built up a slight aversion to the “idea” of chardonnay.

What got me along to the Chardonnay Day tasting was the rumour that a number of winemakers were foregoing the massive oaking and malolactic fermentation to make what was for Australia a somewhat different style of chardonnay … and I’m enough of a wine-lover to be a little curious. What I found on the night was quite a few chardonnays emphasised the fruit and the natural acidity, with little or no malolactic fermentation, and often reduced oak treatment (less time in oak, less new oak, and/or larger barrels to reduce the oak effect). The result is a zingy, fresh wine, the best of which will live and improve for a long time (indeed, some of them are a bit sharp when too young). Of course, there were still plenty of wines with classic oak and malo treatment, but the ones I tried were subtle and elegant rather than heavy-handed.

So – the wines (in order of sampling):


Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay, Margaret River, 2009

Nose: grass, pineapple
Palate: fresh, acid, some butter, apple finish

First glass of the night, and it ended up being one of my favourites. The reference to “apple” was trying to describe the tangy pectin flavour you get from a Granny Smith

 

 


Windowrie Family Reserve Sparkling, Orange, 2010

Nose: sweet, citrus
Palate: sweet, vanished quickly

Pleasant, not much depth, but pretty. Looks like the only sparkling chard here

And it was, which was a little disappointing. We may not have a lot of blanc des blancs around, but this was a good opportunity to showcase them – I would have liked to have seen a few more. Props to Windowrie for being there.

 


M. Chapoutier Domaine Tournon Chardonnay, Pyrenees (Victoria), 2009

Nose: oaky, some cream
Palate: dry, thin, metallic

Not very pleasant

I was a little surprised with this one – I was expecting more, I think. Maybe it was too subtle for me, but one of my least favourite of the night.

 

 


Eden Road “The Long Road” Chardonnay, Tumbarumba (ACT), 2009

Nose: some oak, melon, cream
Palate: citrus, zest, dryness, light acid, slightly oily finish ( but good)

This is one I was looking out for – I met the Eden Road folk at last year’s Winetech Expo, and was interested to see how the Canberra folk dealt with chardonnay. Was not disappointed; one of my picks of the night.

 


Petaluma “Tiers” Chardonnay, Piccadilly Valley (SA), 2007

Bit older, nice yellow colour

Nose : some oak,
Palate: powerful, not overpowering, good balance fruit/ acid/ oak

Nice creamy clean finish. Alex says vanilla
Benefit of a little more age than others so far?

Most of the wines were only a couple of years old, and hadn’t really developed any great depth of colour, but this one was beautiful straw yellow. Seemed a little more “traditional”, but well-balanced with a nice depth of flavour. “Alex”, by the way, is Alex Prichard.


Freycinet Vineyard Chardonnay, Tasmania, 2009

Nose: fruit, not much oak, smooth cream after a couple of minutes

Palate: clean acid, good finish, lifted

Nice

The last word says it all – I liked this wine (I was inclined to be favourable – it’s from a beautiful part of the world, not far from the evocatively-named Wineglass Bay!)

 


De Bortoli Estate Grown Chardonnay, Yarra Valley (Vic), 2010

Nose: some oak, plenty of fruit

Palate: good length, astringent, lemon, full finish.

Needs a bit more time

Another one I was interested in trying (I’ve got a bottle of it waiting in the “cellar”). It WAS interesting; I was a little intrigued by it as a tasted different to anything else there. It seemed slightly harsh, so I think maybe a little more time before I open mine. Note: I think I liked it, but it will bear revisiting.


Moss Brothers Single Vineyard Chardonnay, Margaret River, 2006

2006!! Yellow straw colour
Nose: oak, but well integrated, lemon butter
Palate: balanced, clean dry finish after peach and lemon, balanced oak

I think this was about the oldest wine on the night – certainly the oldest I found. I think you could taste the effect of a little extra time in the bottle, this was a nice drop. And please – don’t judge the wine by this photo – it’s a shocker! They’ve got much better images on their site, so go visit!
I’ve had a couple of their Wilyabrup reds, and I’m beginning to like this mob.


Vinedrops The Luxe Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, 2009

Nose: light, fruit, not much oak
Palate: fruit, acid, residual sweetness

You can possibly tell that by now, I was starting to get a little jaded in the palate – I seriously don’t know how someone can do this for hours on end, even when they’re spitting rather than swallowing (no rude sniggers, please!). I liked this wine, but I was starting to find it difficult to distinguish flavours and smells. Don’t let that paucity of comment put you off – this stuff was OK.

 


BK Wines “Ma Fleur” Chardonnay, Piccadilly Valley, 2009

Nose: fruit, acid, little/oak
Palate: more oak, good balance acid and fruit. Clean finish, good length.

Like

I roused myself for what I thought might be my final effort for the night, and managed a few extra words. in the end though it all came down to that last word – I can’t tell you what fruit I was tasting, but I liked what I was tasting :)

A note on the website – their own site is still under construction, but you can email them from it if you want to know more.

At this stage I decided that I wasn’t doing the wines much justice with my diminishing discrimination (and I was conscious of having to drive), so instead of continuing my unsociable evening hunched over the iPhone, I mingled and chatted with a few folk, and kept my glass empty for a bit over an hour. I was in a conversation with Dave Bowley, and he was very vocal about the next wine, so I returned to the fray for a couple of final tastes.


Yabby Lake Vineyard Single Block Release, Mornington Peninsula (Vic), 2009

Nose: lemon, light oak
Palate: all fruit and acid, oak finish

Almost not chardonnay, mineral overtones, squeaky teeth

This wine is probably the epitome of “modern” Australian chardonnay – not over-oaked, no malo, concentrated fruit and acid. There was flint in here as well, and I noticed my teeth were squeaky after I’d swilled it around (right then I decided I wouldn’t use the electric toothbrush on them when I got home). David Bowley’s take: “absolute standout of the night“. I wasn’t QUITE that taken, but it was definitely one of my picks, too.


Shaw + Smith M3 Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, 2009

Nose: can no longer smell, but fresh, light

Palate: some oak, not overpowering. Lemon acid drops, some sweetness. Long finish

By this time, the crowd had thinned somewhat, and it was easier to see the bar (see pic below), and I noticed that I had neglected one of the local flagships of chardonnay. As I said, by now my nostrils had almost stopped working, but I caught the impression. Tasting it made me think maybe I should have found this a little earlier (so my notes might have made more sense), but I was glad I didn’t miss it completely.

I gave up tasting completely then, and squeezed in a bit more conversation. The party was starting to wind up, and most of those left were heading into the city for food. Me – I headed home for bed :)

Please follow the winery links above to check out the producers’ ranges – most of them have tasting notes that may be more useful to you, and all deserve your support.

Thanks to Justin and Andre (of Qwoff and Vinomofo fame) for hosting, thanks to all the wineries who contributed product, and thanks to Riedel Australia for providing the Vinum Chardonnay glasses for the occasion. There was a live stream of the event, so hopefully that will appear on Qwoff TV in due course.

Thanks to Andre Ursini from Andre’s Cucina and Polenta Bar for the great antipasti, all nicely laid out in generous quantities; thanks to David Bowley (Vinteloper Wines) and Alex Prichard for helping me with selecting wines to taste; and thanks to Sue Bell of Bellwether Wines, Paul Henry the winehero, and Michelle Prak from Hughes PR, for some great conversations.

This was what remained of the crowd just before I left … if it looks like fun, it’s because it was!

 

Harvest-Plan subscription choices

Posted on by
We first raised the topic of individual subscriptions last October – it’s now time to reveal some more details about the subscription choices available: 

In light of feedback received and as a way of opening up the Harvest-Plan service to independent producers, as well as making it easier to adopt for larger companies, we are looking at offering two types of subscription:

  • a best-practice enterprise subscription, and
  • an affordable individual subscription.

common features

  • Both subscriptions offer the same online database functionality and web interfaces to data, maps and calendars.
  • All the data you see can be downloaded for use in mainstream office applications and web utilities.
  • In any case, your private data remains private; we will not willingly exchange it with third parties even if you ask us to. You can make that decision yourself, for instance by downloading the data from the website and emailing the file.
  • An easy change request process allows you to ask for a change or addition at no cost to you if it proves of general interest.

enterprise

This is the full-blown service as originally put together and is designed for multi-winery operations with a national scale.
It includes a “year 0” profiling study, which involves collecting, grooming and standardising your data for one country, developing a tailored maturity model for the subscriber in that country and developing the supporting software.
The annual planning service has the main objective of providing enterprise grade collaboration with the supply network and within your organisation. Key elements of this offering are:

  • Unlimited users
  • Up to fifteen wineries
  • Up to three thousand blocks
  • Your own administrator account to register/unregister users as you need
  • Segregation of duties for main administrative tasks
  • The assurance all users are working from the same reference data (database and maps)
  • Easy to upload, download and integrate data feeds
  • A state of the art maturation model as a result of the profiling study – this CSIRO developed model, tailored to your needs and data, will serve as the basis of maturity predictions for your company.

individual subscription

This is a streamlined offering that removes the enterprise profiling study and IT integration, and places responsibility for data entry onto the user.
It is user-based, with a named account that can have a single simultaneous login, restricted to 50 blocks for one processing facility (winery) in one country.
The subscriber is authorised to share her access to the website with her friends and co-workers at her own risk, although for security and data integrity reasons the account can only be used by one person at a time.
There is no limit on the number of individual subscriptions for a company, however as each individual will be dealing with his/her own database, data is not automatically consolidated for the company.
Key elements per subscription are:

  • A single crushing facility (typically a winery)
  • Up to fifty blocks
  • Flexibility of having a personal database per user
  • A shareable user account
  • Simplicity of saving your maps and data to Google Maps or Excel
  • Simple data entry with standard web forms and straightforward downloads
  • Contribution to, and leverage from a national maturity model, taking advantage of a much larger set of data.

which one should I use?

The individual subscription has been designed to allow vintage planners on a budget to use Harvest-Plan as a robust database for their block data, and get access to the prediction/planning facility for a much smaller financial investment. It is also an opportunity for planners employed by a larger producer to trial Harvest-Plan with little more than a “petty cash” investment, and to quantify the value to their business of the overall system prior to adopting the enterprise subscription.

It IS possible for a large producer to operate the service for some time with a number of individual subscriptions, but at some point it will become sensible to consolidate block data, integrate with third-party systems (either internal ERP/winery management/vineyard management systems; or external parties like Grapeweb and VineAccess) and share harvest plans with harvesters, contract growers, carriers and contract processors. At that point an informed decision can be made to commit to the additional expense based on demonstrated value to the business.

… and now for the steak knives!

Our intention is to make it easier for wineries to adopt the service, and to build up a statistically significant pool of data to improve grape maturity prediction (and in the future assist with other vintage problems like yield estimation and similar). So we have a deal for you: try out an individual subscription for the rest of the 2011 vintage for free! This will give you a low-risk introduction to the Harvest-Plan service, perhaps on a focused subset of your blocks, or all of them if there’s not too many. Have a look at the description of the individual subscription, and if you’re interested visit http://www.harvest-plan.com/ to have a look around, and register.

There is one very important CAVEAT: given that vintage is well underway, and carries on as we speak – we may not be able to gather enough data quickly enough to give you maturity predictions prior to picking in 2011. There will be “predictions” after the event so
you can compare them to what actually happened, and we will certainly be trying to move quickly enough to get them out before the event, but might struggle – your data will help! Even with that caveat, we think you’ll find lots of worthwhile ways of visualising your blocks, wineries and weather stations, and managing your own data. We’re looking forward to you all having a play …

One last important point – here are our terms and conditions (PDF). Please read them, as there are important considerations around our use of your data … and in that context, the quoted price for an individual subscription up to 30th June 2011 is $0!

Here’s a complete description of the Harvest-Plan Background (PDF), which includes the details above.

Pretty in pink – a rose wine revolution

Posted on by

Well, it’s been over a week since it happened, but I was a small part of the Rose Wine Revolution event on the 30th November, and I did promise to post something about it …

The brainchild of DeBortoli, this was a virtual event organised via Twitter (using the hashtag #roserev), Facebook, Eventbrite and Meetup – the Qwoff Boys streamed live from DeBortoli’s in the Yarra Valley, and a bunch of us got together at Homestyle Solutions (home of the inimitable @sprigggy) with the Wine Australia folk to follow the fun (although we didn’t hear too much of what Justin and Andre were saying … we were making way too much noise of our own :) ).

As befitted an event that was driven by social media, it wasn’t a stuffy blind tasting with serious discussion and points being awarded. It was meant as a re-introduction to a wine style that has become known more as lolly water than a drop worth drinking, and some producers were keen to change the perception. There WERE spit buckets available, but most of us were swallowing (as became evident as the tasting went on). At least two of us were taking notes: Alex Pritchard (@azp74 – congrats on the safe arrival of the baby, Alex!) has her post at the Eating Adelaide site, and this is my effort. Interestingly, we both had problems – Alex’s pen dried up on her (so the analogue solution had a failure event) and I lost the first few notes I was making on the iPhone (the digital solution wasn’t infallible either).

So what is the revolution? It seems that colour and flavour are it’s most obvious changes: generally paler (less skin contact) and more savoury (less residual sugar) seems to be the go these days. Most of the wines we tried would contend quite easily with some reasonably serious meat dishes, but they generally managed to retain the light, fresh feel that we enjoy about rose – it’s an interesting walk on the tightrope.

A couple of caveats about the following notes:

  • I’m a wine drinker … not a wine maker, wine critic or wine writer. I drink wine because I enjoy it, not because I’m an “expert”
  • Following from that (as mentioned earlier) – although I was only having very small serves, I didn’t spit any out … which potentially affected the later samples
  • Everything I say about the wines is subjective – it’s one guy’s opinion, and you don’t have to share it

The first four wines are the ones that I lost the notes for (so the problem had NOTHING to do with the drinking!), so they are from memory, or have no opinion tendered.

DeBortoli Rococo Sparkling Rose: I don’t need the notes to recall this as an absolute cracker – this is the quintessential “sunny Sunday afternoon with your mates” drop, or equally at home as an aperitif for that “the boss is coming to dinner, I need to impress” occasion. I suspect the following wines suffered by comparison … it’s a very pretty bottle too.

DeBortoli Yarra Valley Pinot Noir Rose 2010: This may have been too big a contrast with the Rococo, but I recall that I wasn’t taken greatly with this wine. I need to revisit this in different circumstances, given its provenance …

Charles Melton Brut Peche Sparkling Rose: a methode champenoise wine, complete with dosage, and an interesting array of grapes as input … again, this may have suffered being out of sequence, as it seemed a little sweet – maybe less, or no dosage would have improved it?

Rogers and Rufus Barossa Rose 2010:  a grenache-based rose that was the first I tried of the really-really-pale-pink colour, nice and dry. This seems to be a specialist rose producer …

[back to saved notes now]

Longview Boatshed Nebbiolo Rose 2010: “lots of fruit on the nose, quite sweet to smell, rosehip and cherries. Good fruit on palate, dry acid finish. Blush colour.”

Vinteloper Shiraz McLaren Vale Rose 2010: “darker than others, but still light red. Beetroot and carrot on the nose. Dry and light on the tongue, strawberry lingers, good long finish.”

Mayhem Adelaide Hills ‘Little Bubbles’ Sparkling: “Very pale colour. Light strawberry leaf nose. Light sorbet fizz on the tongue, frozen strawberries?”
This is a gewürztraminer, riesling and pinot noir mix, so the pale lightness is not surprising. The name is truth-in-advertising – it reminded me of freeze-dried strawberries that are like snowflakes with a delicate flavour that basically evaporate on the tongue – “little bubbles” indeed.

Spinifex Barossa Valley Rose 2010: “mataro, cinsault, grenache, shiraz. Light medium red colour. Watermelon nose. Dry, heavier flavour, quite savory, more alcohol 13.5%.”

BK Wines ‘Collage’ Saignee Pinot Noir Rose Lenswood 2010: “Indigenous yeast. Wild bramble blackberry nose, pale colour. Sharp, citric flavor, acidy but refreshing.”

Chapel Hill ‘Il Vescovo’ McLaren Vale Sangiovese Rose 2010: “Medium colour, sweet fruit nose, sweet palate to start, with dry acid finish.”

Teusner ‘Salsa’ Barossa Valley Rose 2009: “Grenache mataro. Seaweed on the nose, red rose (as in the flower) colour. Tastes good (palate officially shot to shit).”

I missed a couple of the wines:

“missed out on the misfitt rose from bk wines (Saignee pinot noir fermented on chardy skins) and DeBortoli La Boheme”
“woops – cock up with Torbreck saignee      – wine australia keeping it for themselves?”

While it wasn’t a “serious” tasting, it was a very pleasant way to try some new rose styles. I enjoyed them all, and some would probably have made a better impression if they had been sequenced differently, drunk with food or just at a different time and place … I intend to give them all another look!

Thanks as well to Feast Fine Foods, who supplied some great meats, cooked with great love and care by Richard Gunner, on the very impressive (and expensive) Onfalos BBQ … and to Mark Baulderstone from Riedel who supplied the glassware (I don’t THINK we broke any).
 

Collaborative harvest planning

Posted on by

When CSIRO started the research that has resulted in the maturation modeling that underpins the Harvest-Plan service, one of the driving motivations was to foster what they called an “Adaptive Supply Network”, which in a SMART Conference presentation (PDF) they defined as

“a network of decision makers, each with different goals, who collaborate and share rich information in order to arrive at decisions that mutually affect them. ‘Adaptive’ relates to a capacity to react creatively to situations in a fast and flexible way”

The rest of the document summarises the research results, and describes the complexity inherent in organising a grape harvest where most, if not all, the participants are independent of each other, but interdependent on the timely exchange of information. The key piece of information required for effective planning of grape intake is the aggregated understanding of when grapes will reach the desired ripeness (maturity) – the harvest plan.

The other key part of an adaptive supply network as envisaged by CSIRO, is the sharing of information – the collaboration element. Part of our vision is to facilitate the sharing of the harvest plan with other interested parties such as harvesters, transport operators and contract processors, and this is a key feature on the enterprise subscription roadmap.

Of course, the flow of information is not unidirectional – information about harvester availability, chemical spray plans (from growers) and winery capacities (from contract processors) can all be incorporated into the harvest plan – as long as everyone involved is part of the conversation based on the plan. When we get there, that will be collaborative harvest planning.

Maturation models

Posted on by
[Another in a series of posts discussing differences in the Harvest-Plan subscriptions ]

Grape maturity predictions are based on a maturation model built up over the data available in the pool. There are two models offered: generic and tailored.

As part of the individual subscription, we use a generic maturation model based on ALL the data for the varieties and regions of interest, and as new data (new blocks, new varieties, new regions) is added into the pool this “national” maturation model is refreshed and enhanced.

For enterprise subscriptions, we can also create a maturation model tailored to the company’s varieties and blocks of interest. This results in a model that is more specific to the customer, rather than “averaged” with all other data. Two key points: this data is still added to the pool, and forms part of the input to the generic model; and the tailored and generic models can be used for a comparison, to highlight where an enterprise customer’s blocks differ from an industry-wide model.

As data accumulates in the pool, all models and predictions will become more complete and robust – that is the main purpose of the accumulation exercise. In addition to that, as the data pool grows in size and scope, we will look for more predictive elements, and other models that can be created from it. One possibility is an improved yield estimation; another might be the addition of soil characteristics or water usage into the maturity prediction.  

protecting the potential value of grapes

Posted on by

At the point of picking, each grape represents a potential value to a winery that needs to be protected if it is to be realised. Grapes are relatively fragile and perishable items, and the journey from vine to a controlled fermentation process, although brief, is full of opportunities to diminish that potential value.

  • What are the grapes worth? From observation, there seems to be a relationship between total harvest tonnes, and the revenue per tonne achieved (as an example, the graph below displays a curve describing that relationship). A winery with higher tonnage is likely to be servicing most price points, including commercial and soft-pack products, with lower margins, and lower revenue per tonne. A smaller intake is likely to produce higher-quality, higher-margin bottled wines, with a resulting increase in revenue per tonne. This is not a definitive result, of course – there is often a significant delay between picking the grapes and selling the bottle, particularly for premium wines. This is an illustration, and each winery is better placed than Thoughtpool to fill in its own numbers, but the point remains valid.

  • What is the cost of unrealised potential? Again each winery will have the best idea of the answer, but if we take an intake of 5,000 tonnes, with a value of $4,000 revenue/tonne, then an event which renders 1% (about 2.5 truckloads of grapes) of the harvest unusable would possibly cost the business $200,000 in revenue. The flipside: improve the value-protection by 1% and that $200,000 is nearly all profit. A better-organised harvest is a critical step in preserving the harvest’s value.

Planning is the key to the better-organised harvest, and can start with harvest projections based on historical data extrapolated to the coming vintage, as early as September or October prior to harvest. More specific planning begins with sampling – each sample will trigger a new prediction for a block, and all blocks can be re-predicted to cater for changing weather conditions.
The harvest plan is the aggregation of all the block predictions at a point in time, forming a composite picture of the harvest and its “shape”, a harvest calendar. A number of visualisations are possible, from the mapping to Google Earth or similar to a simple spreadsheet.

A key point about the Individual Harvest-Plan subscription

Posted on by

Probably the key point about the individual subscription for Harvest-Plan is that the user is completely responsible for getting the data into the system – something of a data entry exercise. The more we can keep ourselves out of the work involved in assembling the data, the lower we can take the price, the better for you. Now – we’ll do what we can to make the entry screens easy to use, and we will have standard names and descriptors for grape varieties, and Wine Australia Geographic Indications, and other “industry” data. But the information about your blocks, samples and actual deliveries is in your hands.

Part of our target for the individual subscription is the small operator, who doesn’t have a great deal in the way of IT systems, nor do they want a lot. In these cases we’re looking at replacing the spreadsheet as the way to keep information about vineyards and blocks, and what happens to them (as well as providing the maturity predictions and harvest planning, of course!). In that case, it is likely that you (or an assistant) are already doing the data entry – we don’t anticipate a significantly different workload … and then you get more options for the output (one of which is likely to be a spreadsheet download), like the harvest calendar, plus a few other things in the pipeline.