Grape berry size is a key factor in determining New Zealand Pinot noir wine composition

The concept of terroir in viticulture deals with the influence of environmental factors on vine behaviour and grape ripening. Recent advances in technology, in particular computer technology, allow a more in-depth study of the environment. Geomorphology can be studied with digital Elevation Models (DEM). Soils can be surveyed with geophysics.

Wine storage ensuring the quality and correct aging is one of the issues that wineries, wine traders and consumers encounter after wine bottling.

To digitally record and present all the origins of Austrian wines in the same perfect and clear way was the motivation for the Austrian Wine Marketing Board (Austrian Wine) to start with the project in 2018. In June 2021 the results were presented to the public in an online viewer showing all the designations of Austrian wine, available at https://austrianvineyards.com in a largely barrier-free manner. The online viewer provides tailored individual maps fitted to the respective zoom level. The smallest unit of wine-origins in Austria is called Ried and is displayed in a plot-specific manner highlighting areas under vine. Information on the Ried include administrative district, winegrowing municipality, cadastral municipality, large collective vineyard site, specific winegrowing region, generic winegrowing region, winegrowing area and, in many cases, an illustrative picture. Complementary data on the size, elevation (minimum-maximum), orientation (in 8 sectors plus flat) and gradient (minimum, maximum, average) are based on the area under vine according to the EU’s Integrated Administration and Control System. Additional information covers climate data. The diagrams are taken from the monthly breakdown of data in the annals of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Austria provide a display of values for air temperature, precipitation, and sunshine hours for the reference year and the long-term average. Seasonal aggregated data on temperature, precipitation, and sunshine hours complete the display. Short descriptions with emphasis on geology and soil, field name in historical maps, etymology of the denomination, and main planted variety complements the available information for the main designations in the online viewer. These descriptions are compiled by winegrowers, geologists, historians, and journalists. All the information and data can be extracted to a pdf-file. Printed vineyard maps are also available. Missing content regarding wine origins in Styria will be completed in winter 2021/22.

Amphora wines are known in Portugal as Vinhos de Talha. In this technology, alcoholic fermentation takes place in clay vessels that traditionally were pitched inside using pine pitch. Vinhos de Talha has a distinctive sensorial profile, due to the ancestral technique of vinification. However nowadays, some clay vessels are impermeabilized with other materials than pitch, such as bee wax and mainly epoxy resins.

Today, a variety of remote sensing tools are used to characterise plant performance. However, the vine is rarely studied, as a major crop specificity is canopy discontinuity. Registered images of the vineyard are anisotropic, therefore difficult to analyse.