SMARTWINERY

What is SMARTWINERY?

The need for wine producers to innovate.

For the EU wine sector to maintain its beneficial economic, environmental, and social impact as well as the position as the global leader, it must adapt to new worldwide trends. This means adapting to the new consumption habits of a younger, more digital, and environmentally aware public. Such includes a commitment to new technologies and more efficient and sustainable production methods.

However, this can be challenging for the EU small and medium-sized wineries since these still rely on traditional production methods. Such results in limited efficiencies (yields, energy consumption) and inconsistent products, making it difficult for them to keep up with the changing trends and thus to compete with larger wineries.

Thus, to remain competitive and persist in the wine sector, EU small and medium-sized producers need to reduce production costs and increase their sustainability standard while improving the quality of their wine.

SMARTWINERY interregional partnership – Pushing forward digitalization and sustainability in the wine industry.

To help the small and medium-sized producers in improving their production sustainability (economic, environmental), an interregional partnership has been established between key actors from the quadruple helix, namely, research institutions in the wine sector (UNIMURCIA), leading SMEs in wine production equipment and data-driven innovation (AGROVIN and NEUROPUBLIC) and an association with extensive network in the wine industry (PTV).

SMARTWINERY is a new range of technological and digital solutions, to increase the processing capacity and sustainability of the wineries. Through the integration of innovative processing steps and their digitalisation, SMARTWINERY:

1. Improves the control of key wine parameters (evolution of fermentation, wine redox potential, SO2 levels during processing) and accelerates key stages in the production process (e.g., extraction of desired grape compounds: greater increase in phenolic compounds, polysaccharides and typical aromas of grape variety, wine stabilization during aging).
   1. • Thus, SMARTWINERY allows for doubling the processing capacity in the same facility (processing more kilograms of grapes at the same time, space savings due to a greater use of the installed deposits).
2. Requires significantly less energy to obtain equal results (about 35% less than traditional vinification)
   1. • Thus, SMARTWINERY allows for 25% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (compared to conventional methods).
3. Ensures a final product in which undesired flavours due to thermal treatments are avoided, as well as the formation of carcinogenic compounds such as hidroxymethylfurfural (HMF) formed in wine when it is heated from 50ºC on. Furthermore, SMARTWINERY set of technologies (e.g., ultrasounds, tank control) contribute to inactivating the initial microbial load which allows reducing sulphur dioxide (SO2) level in wine, substance highly used as antimicrobial and antioxidant agent but hazardous to human health and limited by Regulation (EC) No 1493/1999.
   • • Thus, SMARTWINERY allows for production of a high-quality wine in line with the market standards.

SMARTWINERY general objective

The general objective of the project is to scale up and digitalize SMARTWINERY solutions into an industrial demo plant (4 tonne/ hour capacity) and perform a full-scale demonstration to prepare for market deployment. These developments will be based on an interregional partnership – where (i) the Spanish and Greek innovators will integrate and test the demo plant under operational conditions while (ii) the Spanish wine producer organisation (and Greek organisations as support entities) will engage the end users and regional stakeholders in co-creation and collaboration processes.

All this will allow to make SMARTWINERY relevant for the industries and economies in the established and emerging European wine producing regions, contributing to increasing the competitiveness of the European wine industry and regional sustainability.

Specific Objective 1: To design the upscaled and digitalized SMARTWINERY demo plant and to demonstrate the integration of the technological solutions.

Specific Objective 2: To characterize the configuration and process variables (e.g., time, temperature, oxygenation) of SMARTWINERY to optimize production yields, energy consumption, wine quality and environmental performance.

Specific Objective 3: To ensure market adequacy of the project developments (via a participatory approach of the end users in the design of SMARTWINERY), and an interregional impact of the SMARTWINERY innovation (via regional stakeholder engagement).

Specific Objective 4: To set the necessary aspects for industrialising the production of the different components of SMARTWINERY, establishing a module-based device “on demand” with a range of processing capabilities and accessories, to meet the needs of each client.

Specific Objective 5: To ensure wide visibility of the project´s results among the key target audiences and the general public.

The SMARTWINERY project will result in a demo plant, co-created with and open to wine producers, thanks to which the solution scale-up will be user relevant, thus accelerating market uptake. Furthermore, the 22-month demonstration phase will allow for obtaining a set of parameters of the demo plant functioning at industrial scale (processing capacity of 4 tonnes/hour) – regarding the quality of the final product (density, pH, and SO2 content, aroma compounds, chromatic characteristics, and phenolic compounds). This information will give credibility to the SMARTWINERY solution and its breakthrough results, allowing smoother market entrance.

The Consortium

The project is led by a research organisation (UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA, UMU), that together with two innovating SMEs (AGROVIN and NEUROPUBLIC) supported by wine producer association (PTV + supporting entities) will join forces and invest resources into upscaling and digitalization of SMARTWINERY.

Thanks to this joint interregional innovation, breakthrough technology will be made directly available for:

• in Spain – the regions of Castilla la Mancha and Murcia (less developed/ transition) – where smart solutions are highly needed to solve the issue of limited cost efficiency of wine production (limited quality vs. raising production costs); furthermore, in the region of Madrid (developed), the solution will support the producers of this young and upcoming region.
• in Greece – the region of Attica (+extended outreach to northern Greece and Crete, all less developed/transition) – where smart solutions are needed in support of the strategic focus on high quality wine and innovation, to accelerate wine recognition of this emerging wine region.

The multi-actor dimension of the project becomes clear when looking at the different types of organisations involved in the consortium:

Universidad de Murcia (UMU) – Project Coordinator

The University of Murcia (UMU) is a public university located in the Region of Murcia. The different faculties are located in five different campuses. More than 34,000 students are enrolled in the Region of Murcia. The different faculties are located in five different campuses. with more than 34,000 students enrolled.

University of Murcia has national and international acknowledgments. It belongs to the program Campus Mare Nostrum 37 /38, that is the International Excellence Campus for Higher Education and Research of the University of Murcia (UM) and the University of Cartagena (UPCT). The campus is a joint effort of international organizations, research centres, technology parks, companies and the administration, which seeks to transform the Region of Murcia into a pole of international, high-quality education, science, business and culture in the Mediterranean area.

The research group that coordinates this project, leaded by Dr. Encarna Gómez Plaza, has the technical experience to carry out and offer various types of physicalchemical and sensory analyzes of grapes, musts and wines, in accordance with official methods, and which apply both to the pre-fermentation stages of the wine, as well as those that affect fermentation and those that follow its completion, prior to making the appropriate corrections.

The University of Murcia also participates in different initiatives related to Industry 4.0. The University of Murcia and the Takasago company have come together to create the Takasago Industry and Maintenance 4.0 Chair with the aim of promoting research and knowledge dissemination activities in the field of industry and maintenance 4.0.

AGROVIN – Technology developer

AGROVIN mission is to provide wineries with high-tech oenological solutions that preserve every last detail of the winemaking process. AGROVIN is involved in several R&I projects with the most important Wineries, Research Centers and Universities in the wine world. The fruit of this effort is different equipment designed to increase control of the process of winemaking and generate more added value to our customers. AGROVIN has a fully equipped testing laboratory accredited by ENAC, where a variety of microbiological and chemical determinations are made for the oenological industry.

PTV – The Wine Technology Platform

The PTV was born with the aim of promoting innovation in the wine sector, they have established the first common R&D&i strategy for the wine sector in Spain. PTV thus acts by integrating all R&D&i agents in the wine sector, including wineries, companies in the auxiliary wine industry, research groups, technology centers and even business associations and other public and private institutions. Since its creation in 2011, the PTV has consolidated itself as a key actor in promoting innovation and knowledge exchange between the different actors with the aim of modernizing a highly traditional sector.

Since its creation it has boosted 173 R&I projects with > 137,7 million euros. All these projects are focused on the objectives of the Strategic Agenda for Wine Innovation, the document that structures innovation in the Spanish wine sector. This document was developed by the PTV in 2012 and is periodically updated by a committee of national and international experts.

NEUROPUBLIC – The technological partner

NEUROPUBLIC is an innovative ICT SME (90+ employees), specialized in the development of high-demand applications, focused especially on digital agriculture. NEUROPUBLIC products and services are  being successfully used for over 10 years, by > 800.000 end-users in agriculture, local government and healthcare. NP is a member of AIOTI (www.aioti.eu), BDVA, EARSC and Farm Europe and their Smart Farming working groups, invests considerable amount of money in R&D and implements the research results on innovative products that satisfy the demands of the future and the new trend markets.

NEUROPUBLIC is involved in 17 different international and national R&I projects focused on agriculture and data driven innovation. NEUROPUBLIC has significant expertise in developing IoT-powered data-driven solutions for agriculture. On 2013 NP started its SF program, aiming to provide next generation advice to farmers. To support that, NEUROPUBLIC designed and developed Gaiatrons, IoT telemetric agro-environmental stations for the monitoring of environmental and soil variables from the field. Taking as input the variables coming from the environmental sensing network and combining them with a variety of data coming from remote sensing (RPAs and satellites), proximity sensors, farm data, farm logs etc, a cloud-based DSS supports the decision-making mechanism for the farmer’s every-day activities, in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.

Furthermore, the consortium will be supported by the following Greek organizations, who have expressed their support/ interest to collaborate by providing visibility to the project to the wine sector stakeholders and by inviting their members to take part in the knowledge hub sessions:

• United Winemaking Agricultural Cooperative of Samos
• Drama Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• Winemakers of North Greece
• Association of Grape Growers and Winemakers of Crete

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