Today, wine traceability back to the vineyard, in line with the farm-to-fork concept, is a desirable and frequently discussed topic in the wine industry for two main reasons. For quality wine as a premium product, such information has significant value in marketing and sales. In addition, genuine traceability of wine-growing conditions and performed activities can have a substantial impact on wine safety and quality.
The concept of providing complete vineyard data and traceability from vineyard to bottle is currently applied to a very limited number of wines available on the market. With today’s information technology solutions, it can largely be implemented only by single-operator wine producers that use one information system, or a small number of closely connected information systems, across all stages of production: from grape growing and cellar processing to bottling, distribution and sales.
Grape production in Europe in particular is highly fragmented and operates through the cooperation of multiple actors, including growers, consultants, wineries, marketing companies and distributors, all contributing to bringing the final product — wine — to the market. In such a fragmented value chain, the exchange of traceability data that could be used for food safety, marketing or quality improvement is much more difficult and is currently almost never applied in a multi-actor environment.
In these multi-stakeholder value chains, trust between the vineyard and the winery is extremely important from two perspectives:
- food safety,
- the provision of information on geographical origin, which the winery can use to optimise wine quality through an appropriate winemaking process and, consequently, increase the value of the final product.
Outcome
The objective is to enable trusted and controlled data exchange through the use of a digital twin of vineyard areas, supported by iSHARE, which provides mechanisms for identity and access control. The project is being implemented across four organisations from three countries. The winegrower, JoJo’s Vineyard at Chiltern Hills Farm, will be able to decide which data from the vineyard management software, eVineyard, they wish to share with the winery to which they supply grapes, Langham Wine; with the consultant advising them on grape production, Vinescapes; and with the marketing company, Digital Stories, which helps them market sustainably produced wine.
The integrations and components of the software solution will enable all stakeholders to access relevant, protected and voluntarily shared vineyard data — whether the stakeholder is a wine consumer, winery staff, a consultant, a marketing company or any other participant in the value chain.
More information about the project is available at this link.
