Does robotics have a role in the winery and the vineyard? What do you think of when you consider winemaking? Medieval cellars, aging oak barrels sitting quietly in the dark and winemakers hunched over in dark caves waiting for the moment to arrive when their precious liquid becomes wine? Wines stored in jugs rather than bottles?

Welcome to the 21^st century where much of winemaking is done in bright, shiny stainless steel tanks, perhaps using the latest in filtering machines. Today wines can be discovered “bottled” in plastic bottles, paint-style cans (Paradocx Vineyard) or cardboard boxes. Robotic type machines are available to do the time consuming riddling. Check out Gloria Ferrer’s riddling machine. It may remind you of Star Wars.

New on the scene and still being developed is a robotic type machine for pruning vineyards. Vision Robotics Corporation has been designing a machine that can analyze each vine and make the proper cuttings. Will it be able to prune better than people can prune? Can you imagine driving, biking or walking past vineyards and seeing a machine pruning grapevines? What will this mean to the future of the wine industry? Only time will tell.

Cheers, Kathy