As you pour that next glass of wine think about how many grapes went into
making it and how the grapes were selected.

Pickers get the grapes from the vine but only the ripe ones must go on
through for processing.

Traditionally this has been done manually, but an optical grape sorter
machine can do it faster.

Each morning the vintner selects 200 perfect grapes and feeds them into the
sorter which takes photos and creates a composite image of an ideal grape.

Then bulk grapes are fed in and the machine snaps a picture of each at
10,000 frames per second.

Each grape is compared to the ideal and selected for wine or ejected with a
blast of air.

Where 15 people can sort 2 tons of grapes per hour the machine takes only 12
minutes.

That kind of repetitive work is exactly what computers should be doing.

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/01/robo...es-12-minutes/

On 1/22/2014 4:33 PM, st.helier wrote:
> As you pour that next glass of wine think about how many grapes went
> into making it and how the grapes were selected.
>
> Pickers get the grapes from the vine but only the ripe ones must go on
> through for processing.
>
> Traditionally this has been done manually, but an optical grape sorter
> machine can do it faster.
>
> Each morning the vintner selects 200 perfect grapes and feeds them into
> the sorter which takes photos and creates a composite image of an ideal
> grape.
>
> Then bulk grapes are fed in and the machine snaps a picture of each at
> 10,000 frames per second.
>
> Each grape is compared to the ideal and selected for wine or ejected
> with a blast of air.
>
> Where 15 people can sort 2 tons of grapes per hour the machine takes
> only 12 minutes.
>
> That kind of repetitive work is exactly what computers should be doing.
>
> http://modernfarmer.com/2014/01/robo...es-12-minutes/
>
Interesting! How automated is the rest of the NZ wine making? I would
not be enthusiastic about wineries producing the same "perfect" wine
each year; not that NZ wine is uninteresting.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

"James Silverton" asked......
>
>How automated is the rest of the NZ wine making?
>

If you are specifically referring to ultra-precise hand destemming / berry
sorting - it does not exist in NZ (too labour intensive; too expensive
considering the minimum wage here is $13.75 / hour).

I cannot think of one winery who hand-sorts berries on a regular basis (I
think I can recall one or two instances, over the years, where a dessert
wine may have been afforded such treatment) - so, technology such as this
would have no takers in NZ.

Elsewhere in the winemaking process, obviously machine harvesting (in the
larger establishments); mechanical destemming / crushing (excluding those
artisans who whole bunch ferment); pneumatic presses and automated bottling.

Apart from a very few who have wooden or concrete fermenters - stainless
steel predominates in the winery.

Pretty much standard stuff.

I can see where, even at $US150,000, this would be extremely cost effective.

Of course, the trade unionist in me would abhor such a blatant capitalistic
way of putting good hard working people out of a job - however menial.

st.h

On 1/22/2014 6:10 PM, st.helier wrote:
> Of course, the trade unionist in me would abhor such a blatant
> capitalistic way of putting good hard working people out of a job -
> however menial.
>
> st.h
I should hope not after publicly declaring me to be a union supporter
myself at that bastion of Capital, the Langham


--
Joseph Coulter

"Joseph Coulter" wrote in message ...

On 1/22/2014 6:10 PM, st.helier wrote:
>> Of course, the trade unionist in me would abhor such a blatant
>> capitalistic way of putting good hard working people out of a job -
>> however menial.
>
> I should hope not after publicly declaring me to be a union supporter
> myself at that bastion of Capital, the Langham

Yes, Joseph - but of course, you are unaware of the fact that your image was
captured on CCTV alighting from said indiscrete vehicle, and stored in a
rather insecure manner on my computer.

Said image has probably been "sourced" by the NSA !!!!!!!

I say this because, I continually hear clicking noises on my cellfone, and
foreign accents in the backgroound using a strange language ie "hey yowel,
won sum grits an jowls in an aluminum bowl"

You have been warned

p.s. To try and get this post even remotely on-topic, what wine matches
grits and jowls?

All the grapes you have..sugar and water makes good wine. Dont make me come up there. Thanks.

"st.helier" > wrote in
:

>
> Each grape is compared to the ideal and selected for wine or ejected
> with a blast of air.
>
> Where 15 people can sort 2 tons of grapes per hour the machine takes
> only 12 minutes.


I read somewhere that using only "perfect" grapes can be against the
quality of the final wine. The idea being that such perfect grapes are very
alike and resulting wines are technically perfect but lack emotion.

Actually, what we wine drinkers perceive as "terroir" can also be thought
as a group of common defects to a vineyard or a place, that instead of be
perceived as "defect" are perceived as "personality".

Some winegrowers I have been fortunate enough to talk to stated that when
doing their own vine selections for replanting their vineyards, they
typically select their best vines but also medium-class vines from their
own vineyard because they want genetic diversity to provide the grapes.

Also, I am very fond of some wines that are made without too much
selection. A good example of this can be the block-picked parcels that
Johannes Selbach is picking "at the same time" by opposition to the common
practice in the Mosel to pick for Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese... in
different "tries". Consistently, my favorite wine from Selbach-Oster is
Rotlay, or Schmitt..., which are block picked.


My personal opinion (I have no science evidence to prove all that) is that
this "perfect sorting method" will make low-end wines much better wines and
that's good enough. For fine wines, the ones that emotions us.... I am not
so sure.

s.