Vinimag©
Institut Francais de la Vigne et du Vin (IFV)
Country
France
These fermenters are individually thermoregulated, and the temperature is measured at three heights by IR sensors. A collaborative arm transfers the fermenters to a weight and colour measuring station and to an input addition station. Weight monitoring provides access to fermentation kinetics. This measurement is carried out every hour, as well as the measurement of the colour, which follows the extraction of the film from the juice during fermentation. The second station allows the liquid addition of inputs in an automated manner.
This robot is the central experimental device of the new UMT Actia Oenotyping, which brings together the scientific and technical skills of the IFV, the Institut Agro Montpellier, the UMR SPO and the UEPR of INRAE. Unique in the world for red wines, it aims to allow "high-throughput oenotyping". Indeed, thanks to this system, researchers will study and integrate oenological criteria upstream of the creation and varietal selection, which aims to adapt plant material to climate change (adaptation to high temperatures, resistance to diseases).
The effect of drought on the wine will also be studied, as well as new winemaking routes with little or no inputs. Vinimag© is the central tool of the Minicave project, which is the result of 5 years of development by the IFV, INRAE and the Institut Agro to respect the main principles of red winemaking on a kilo scale.
A Grape Bank allows the 1 kg batches to be kept frozen and fermentation to be postponed throughout the year, thus freeing itself from the seasonality of the harvest. The robot ensures the fermentation and pressing carried out by a 9-station plant, called Nano'press.
