By For the second article in my series about precision viticulture for the Napa Valley Wine Academy, I looked into how precision viticulture techniques are being used from the air.
Welcome back to our series of articles focused on emerging technologies in precision viticulture. In this three-part series, we’re looking at how new viticultural technology is helping get the wines you love into the bottle more easily and safely for the people who grow their precious raw material: grapes.
In our first feature, we dug into Land. In this essay, we’re looking to the skies for some technologies that leverage the air itself to provide new insights to grape growers.
Smoke Mapping
With California experiencing more frequent and severe wildfires coinciding with the grape growing season and harvest, growers have scrambled for solutions to deal with smoke tainted grapes, which can lead to wines with an unpredictable and unpleasant ashy taste. Research is ongoing on many fronts, but so far, it has been challenging to determine exactly when in the growing season smoke taint potential is the greatest, as well as how much exposure to smoke is damaging.
Noelle Hale 