Wine Australia

Opportunity for

• Agritech software providers, product developers, innovators and commercial partners interested in commercialising in-field fruit maturity measurement technology to combine with existing or new platforms.

Opportunity for

• Agritech software or hardware providers, innovators and commercial partners interested in access to wine grape yield predictions to integrate into existing or new platforms

Opportunity for

• Agritech platforms to access grape vine water status data to combine with other measures
• Technology hardware manufacturers to partner on the development of in- field grape vine units

Opportunity for

• Agrifoodtech companies interested in trialling later stage technologies in the grape and wine sector
• Grape and wine value chain participants interested in trialling later stage technologies

Opportunity for

• Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) manufacturers interested in new products and services
• Digital platform developers interested in new products and services
• Contractors servicing grape and wine sector interested in developing new products and services
• AI prediction and AgTech companies interested in yield prediction products and services

Opportunity for

• Digital platform developers interested in new products and services
• Decision support companies interested in new products and services
• Hardware development companies interested in new products and services
• Existing platform companies interested in integrating the solution

Management and diagnosis of grapevine trunk disease in vineyards and nurseries

Understanding the formation and fate of key volatile compounds is a core capability that requires continuation in our sector, as these compounds provide researchers and producers with quality targets for improvements in vineyard and winemaking practices. Volatiles contribute specific varietal and regional characters and contribute greatly to the overall in-mouth sensory experience. The volatiles of wine can be the mark of its quality for a consumer when drinking or the basis of its rejection and are influenced at every stage of handling or processing. At the core of an innovative sector is the ability to understand and measure key volatiles, while developing practices to influence or control flavours associated with wine quality and style.

Grapevine planting material represents a major investment and critical production asset for the Australian wine industry, but the genetic diversity that is present in Australia is poorly understood. Furthermore, while grapevine cultivars can be unequivocally typed by ampelography and/or genetic tests, clonal identification solely relies on the tracing of supply records to the point of origin. Such records are not always available or reliable, particularly for older accessions. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) provides the most highly detailed methodology for defining grapevine cultivars and more importantly, clones of those cultivars.

An ideal fermentation for wine is short, typically lasting no longer than a week. When fermentations become protracted, the delays can have a direct effect on the scheduling of winery operations. Worst-case scenarios may see residual sugar concentrations failing to meet production specifications, resulting in time-consuming and potentially expensive remediation actions. Fermentation management is complicated by the different types of fermentation employed (alcoholic and malolatic), the mode of those fermentations (concurrent or sequential, inoculated or not), the styles of wine being made (red or white, cellar bright juice or high solids) and the composition of the fermentation substrate (high YAN or high sugar) to name a few. These choices have the potential to shape fermentation outcomes and can lead to unpredictability in both the overall duration and completeness of fermentation.

Non-volatile compounds such as anthocyanins, tannins, polysaccharides, proteins, amino acides and organic acids are present in wine at high concentrations relative to other components. Adequate extraction and retention of non-volatile compounds are critical to wine quality (colour, texture). However, due to both their larger size and tendency to interact, non-volatile compounds cause problems in wine processing, like haze formation, precipitation, crystallisation and adsorption.

The primary tastes of sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savoury (umami) are well defined and understood to direct our food choices. Overt bitterness in wine is generally considered acceptable and it is important to identify and learn to control bitterants in wine. Savoury characters in wine, although commonly reported in tastings are virtually unstudied. Sweet taste, even at low level, can strongly drive consumer preferences of beverages. Although wine sweetness is often ascribed to residual sugar it does not explain the sensation often described by winemakers as 'fruit-sweetness', which appears in 'dry' red wines. Beyond these basic tastes, there are the mouth-feel sensations, such as astringency, fullness (body) and viscosity, which together elicit the more complex experience of wine texture.

Wine is the ultimate culmination of a plethora of complex biological processes. Accordingly, most inputs (even when excluding grape must) are biologically based and include commercial yeasts, bacteria and enzymes used in processing. Classically, the development of improved biological inputs has resolved around phenotypic selection, in which organisms with improved characteristics are specifically chosen for further use or as a breeding stock. As selection relies on genetic variation, mutagenesis is often used to increase the pool of variation available. However, standard mutagenesis/selection is a random process, in which isolates with the required alteration must be identified from a background of thousands of strains. Classical strain development is therefore resource intensive, which ultimately limits the scope of research that can be undertaken.

This project aims to develop an emissions reduction roadmap and toolkit with and for the Australian grape and wine sector. The roadmap will assist the sector in defining its emissions targets, guide the sector collectively in progress towards those targets and provide practical information on emissions management to producers in an accesible form.

This project is the second phase of a program of work to develop a national certified standard for grapevine propagation material which is underpinned by current science and can be applied throughout the propagation supply chain and into vineyards.