Winemaker Hall Vineyard is one of the first in Napa Valley California utilizing optic technology to replace hand sorting grapes.
Bloomberg Television’s Rachel Crane traveled to Hall Vineyards in the heart of Napa to get the season’s first taste of high tech wine.
A robot takes pictures at 10,000 frames per second and analyzes the grapes instantly, selecting the ones that meet Steve Leveque’s programmed specifications. Leveque is Hall’s Director of Winemaking. A puff of air blats out unwanted grapes.
The robot does the job of 60 laborers in just a few hours. Leveque expects a return on his robotic investment in a couple of years.
Eight winemakers in Napa Valley have invested in robotic technology.
link if video does not play: Future of Winemaking is High-Tech Robots
The future of winemaking is robots, and the future is now.
A quick check on Hall’s Winemaker page says “HALL is truly devoted to making great wine—going about achieving that in all the right ways: Organically farmed vineyards, hand-sorted fruit, gravity-fed tanks, native yeast fermentations.” – Steve Leveque
Given the future has arrived, Hall needs an update on that page to say “robot-sorted fruit”.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
