An integrate wireless proximal sensing system for wine supply chain production monitoring from vine to barrel

Abstract

Winemaking is a dynamic process where microbiological and chemical effects may strongly diversify the products of the same vineyard and even between wine vats. This high variability causes an increase in work in terms of control and process management. As well as for Precision Viticulture, the winemaking process therefore requires a site-specific approach to optimize cellar practices and quality management, suggesting a new concept of winemaking, identified as Precision Enology. The collaboration between the Institute of Biometeorology of the National Research Council and the firm GMR Strumenti has permitted the development of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), which performs a real-time remote monitoring for both grape and canopy microclimate, and wine evolution. The system consists in a series of nodes able to acquire data both in vineyard and cellar, and to provide their wireless transmission to a base station unit. Then data are sent to a remote server and users can view them remotely through a browser or a dedicated app for tablet or smartphone. WSN is a well-known technology in vineyard. The development of a monitoring system on steel vats in cellar would be relatively simple, however the barrels wooden matrix could cause serious problems, both for barrel positioning and management practices, such as sampling, filling or movement. This paper presents a WSN applicable to every phase of the wine production process, also in barrel, due to integrated nodes in silicone bungs with sensors for the measurement of wine physical and chemical parameters, without any impact on cellar management, minimizing time and costs for sampling and laboratory analysis. Laboratory test results have shown good performance in terms of signal stability and precision, and power consumption with minimal size. The possibility of integrating any kind of sensors makes the system a flexible tool, which can satisfy various monitoring needs.