Changes to viticulture in the last forty years. Are these tendencies sustainable?

Abstract

It is 40 years since I made my first harvest of Syrah vines in the hot climate of Griffith, NSW, Australia. The commercial vineyards of the region were healthy and vigorous, extensively cultivated with heavy and wide tractors, own-rooted, flood irrigated, relatively high yielding (to 30 t/ha), hand pruned and harvested, and with non-positioned, highly-shaded canopies producing bulk wine in general. Vines are now less healthy due to ingress of trunk diseases, herbicides control weeds under the vine and weeds (euphemistically “cover crops”) grow and may be mown in the inter row, and vines are sometimes grafted to trunk disease-infected and nematode resistant rootstocks. Harvest is always by machine, pruning is never by hand and maybe by machine, and the canopies are still shaded producing bulk wine in general. Machines typically are heavier.

Subsequently, with my friends and colleagues (Alain Carbonneau of France, Cesare Intrieri and Giovanni Cargnello of Italy, and Mark Kliewer of California, and all of us inspired by Nelson Shaulis of Cornell University) we led a canopy management “revolution” beginning in the 1970s. A plethora of new training systems were developed which reduced shade, and could improve yield, wine quality and sometimes mechanisation.

Of these many changes, most are sustainable. Machinery is not becoming lighter however, nor are recycling spray machines widely used. Improved canopy management is generally ignored, out of lack of commercial awareness of benefits, and sometimes concern about mechanisation.

And what of the future? Lowest paid workers may continue to be displaced by technology introduced by their higher-paid managers, although they in turn may be displaced by technology. Improved vineyard monitoring by remote sensors will impact on wine quality, and being “high tech” will cause excitement.

In my experience, the well-trained human eye is the most economical, reliable and discerning sensor one can use in vineyards, but the real benefits are generally ignored. One’s eyes can be used to substantially improve yield and wine quality, if you know how!