Making wine in California, France, and even Serbia, consulting winemaker Julien Fayard has a broad view of the winemaking world. His constant monitoring, evaluation, and investment in winemaking technology benefit both his own and his clients’ wineries. Julien offers insight into winemaking technology on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as some of the specific technologies he utilizes. Detailed Show Notes: Julien’s background: French, came to the US in 2006 and worked for Phillipe Melka, started his consulting practice in 2013, built two wineries and manages three others; mostly Napa (~85%), but also makes wine from Sonoma, Sierra Foothills, Provence, Bordeaux, and SerbiaUses trial & error to evaluate new winemaking technologyUsually, a trigger that causes each tech adoptionHears about new tech from travel and conversations with other wineries and tech companiesFrench tech is mostly involved with wine contact (e.g., yeast, oak treatment), the US is mostly logistics, mechanization, automation of labor, and CA is slow to mechanize vineyard workMonitors the slowly evolving knowledge base in winemaking - most tech innovations are slight derivatives of existing knowledge (e.g., sulfur automation)To buy into a new tech: other people using it, company viability (and ability to scale), practicality of solution (e.g., barrel door for fermentation did not take into consideration time and the challenge to move between barrels)ROI calculation includes cost savings, risk assessments, and quantity or quality improvementsGenerally does not implement things that could move costs more than 10-20%The most significant variable cost driver is when volume drops (e.g., waste, accidents, filtering, bulking out wine) - each tank is ~$100k of wineFruition Sciences did a lot of sap flow analysis, but never got mass adoptionWell monitoring technology is happening, and may be required soonCommunications modules for sensors are getting much cheaper, enabling more techVinwizard (NZ) - wall winery automationStarted with pumpover automation (temp, speed)Can control to avoid peak energy hoursCan set times for tanks to make temp-sensitive additions easierAlarms for glycol system outagesArkenstone was 1st Napa winery to adopt, learned from them, a solution more complete than TankNetMin ~$50k costInnovint - winery SW management systemCreates all work orders, does costing, compliance, and traceabilityClients, CPAs, and compliance can see everythingA communication tool, very user-friendlySentia - hand wine analyzer (VA, malic, alcohol, SO2)$2k/machine<$1/use for stripsUses a solid chemical reaction“Fragile” tech, 1 in 30 results is way off, researching this with a PhdTried bungs with sensors, but requires a tech breakthrough to workOenofrance - a system for faster oak extractionPut oak blocks (closest to staves) under pressure to extract oak flavors faster$40k in oak to $4k (renting tech)Costs ~$80-90k to buy machineExcited about new destemmers, probes for monitoring wines (for “modern natural wine,” in-ground amphora aging) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.