A multidisciplinary approach to evaluate the effects of the training system on the performance of “Aglianico del Vulture” vineyards

The temperature increase related to ongoing climate changes is causing a progressive anticipation of the ripening time, negatively affecting grape quality at harvest.

Brandy is a spirit drink produced from wine spirit aged for at least six months in oak casks with a capacity of less than 1000 L and minimum alcohol by volume (ABV) of 36%. During the aging process, physicochemical and sensory changes take place. Manifested by colour, flavour or aroma variations that improve the quality of the initial distillate.

The evolution of Republic of Moldova’s wine industry offers a compelling case study in how legal harmonization and institutional reform can catalyze the transformation of a national wine sector.

The Fregoni bioclimatic index (IF) considers the daily temperature range during the ripening month and the number of days with temperature below 10°C.

The main innovation in the VINIoT service is the joint use of two technologies that are currently used separately: vineyard monitoring using multispectral imaging and deployed terrain sensors. One part of the system is based on the development of artificial intelligence algorithms that are feed on the images of the multispectral camera and IoT sensors, high-level information on water stress, grape ripening status and the presence of diseases. In order to obtain algorithms to determine the state of ripening of the grapes and avoid losing information due to the diversity of the grape berries, it was decided to work along the first year 2020 at berry scale in the laboratory, during the second year at the cluster scale and on the last year at plot scale. Different varieties of white and red grapes were used; in the case of Galicia we worked with the white grape variety Treixadura and the red variety Mencía. During the 2020 and 2021 campaigns, multispectral images were taken in the visible and infrared range of: 1) sets of 100 grapes classifying them by means of densimetric baths, 2) individual bunches. The images taken with the laboratory analysis of the ripening stage were correlated. Technological maturity, pH, probable degree, malic acid content, tartaric acid content and parameters for assessing phenolic maturity, IPT, anthocyanin content were determined. It has been calculated for each single image the mean value of each spectral band (only taking into account the pixels of interest) and a correlation study of these values with laboratory data has been carried out. These studies are still provisional and it will be necessary to continue with them, jointly with the training of the machine learning algorithms. Processed data will allow to determine the sensitivity of the multispectral images and select bands of interest in maturation.