AWRI Hunter Valley, Riverina and Tasmania Nodes
Abstract
Australia is a geographically large and diverse country, with grape and wine producing regions situated in diverse climatic zones, and consequently, different regions express large differences in their Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) priorities. In addition, the extension and adoption messages for particular research outputs need to be tailored for the region concerned. For this reason, the AWRI established a network of regional nodes in order to address regional RD&E. priorities; the Riverina, Tasmania and Hunter Valley nodes being the subject of this report. The report covers the period from I November 2013 to 30 June 2014. The work reported, comprising Outputs and Activities largely directed by the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC), focuses on extension and facilitated adoption of technologies which had been previously developed, and on extending existing A WRI flavour research projects via the Tasmania node. As such, this period represented a strong opportunity to extend work to a wider Australian wine industry audience, and a total of 30 workshops and seminars were staged across four states, with each event strongly attended by industry personnel. This achieved or exceeded the project's Output targets.
Summary
Extensive capability building was performed by this project during the period from I November 2013 to 30 June 2014, although it is largely too early to assess the industry outcomes and their value. A large number of industry personnel representing many of Australia’s largest wine producers were provided with practical demonstration of two tools which can improve processing efficiency and therefore increase profitability; namely the AWRI Fermentation Simulator and the AWRI Refrigeration Demand Calculator. Seven regional Refrigeration Efficiency workshops were staged and a webinar was presented, which were attended by a total of 116 industry personnel representing 80 wineries. In addition, six regional Fermentation Simulator workshops and a webinar were staged, which were attended by a total of 89 industry personnel. Both the Fermentation Simulator and the A WRI Refrigeration Demand Calculator are available as free downloads from the AWRI website, and recordings of the two webinars are also available from the webinars page of the AWRI website. With respect to the Fermentation Simulator, the tool was modified in two ways in response to industry feedback; firstly in respect of the ability to model ferments conducted with cool-climate grapes (i.e. low pH and high titratable acidity [TA]), and fermentations conducted with indigenous yeasts, both of which result in a longer ‘lag time’ before fermentation becomes fully established. These modifications allow wider applicability of the Ferment Simulator in industry. In addition a simplified ‘Lite’ version of the Fermentation Simulator was developed in response to feedback received mainly from smaller wineries, and a design brief for a mobile platform App. was developed in response to feedback from potential users that they would prefer a web-based interface. An Industry Adoption Plan to enhance future industry uptake of the Ferment Simulator was also developed. An article describing use of both versions of the Ferment Simulator was also written and published in the November/December 2013 issue of Wine and Viticulture Journal. In terms of assessing industry interest in the Ferment Simulator, between 28 October 2013 and 30 June 2014, 956 page-views of the AWRI website section covering the Ferment Simulator homepage, login page and the download page were recorded; including 80 unique page-views of the Ferment Simulator Download page. The AWRI website has recently been modified so that in future it will be possible to track the number of downloads of both the Fermentation Simulator and the Refrigeration Demand Calculator, in addition to the number of page-views. The working prototype of the AWRI Refrigeration Demand Calculator was developed at the Riverina node using data accessed from three large wineries in the Riverina, and three medium-sized wineries in the Hunter Valley via the Riverina and Hunter Valley nodes. Refrigeration is by far the largest user of electricity in the majority of wineries, and consequently, improving refrigeration efficiency will result in an immediate improvement to profitability. In response to this opportunity, the Refrigeration Demand Calculator was developed as a practical spreadsheet-based software tool, and was made available to all Australian wine producers as a free download from the AWRI website. The purpose of the AWRI Refrigeration Demand Calculator is to allow wine producers to analyse, understand, and better manage their refrigeration demand with a view to reducing the amount of electricity used, and thus the amount of money spent on electricity. Wine producers are able to enter grape intake and production data to simulate refrigeration demand across the entire annual production cycle, and assess the impact of factors such as cellar storage, cold stabilisation temperatures, fermentation conditions, climate, brine temperature, tank size and insulation on refrigeration demand and energy costs.