The experimental and intelligent winery, SMARTWINERY, is underway.
Last Tuesday, January 28th the headquarters of Grupo Agrovin (Alcázar de San Juan) hosted the presentation event of the experimental and intelligent winery SMARTWINERY. It is a connected plant equipped with the latest technology that has been launched within the framework of the European project that gives it its name and in which the University of Murcia, Grupo Agrovin, the Wine Technology Platform and the Greek company NEUROPUBLIC are working.
Sofía León, Business Development Manager of Grupo Agrovin, was in charge of welcoming the nearly 40 attendees to the presentation event of the experimental winery, highlighting the commitment that this company has made, during its more than 65 years of history, to innovation in order to offer wineries around the world efficient systems and solutions for winemaking.
Afterwards, Encarna Gómez, Professor at the University of Murcia, presented the SMARTWINERY project which, after a year of implementation, has managed to “create an industrial demonstration plant that integrates the latest trend in equipment and technology, available to small and medium-sized companies that want to make use of it to produce their wine”.
Ricardo Jurado, Technical Director of Grupo Agrovin, explained the design and start-up process of the plant, highlighting the machinery and patented technology already available in the experimental winery. Jurado also detailed the protocols defined for the 2024 harvest, focused on the production of wines from the Patricia and Tempranillo grape varieties, and previewed the next steps in the development of the project.
Finally, Victoria Humanes, Communication Director of the Wine Technology Platform, gave a presentation on the importance of communication in European projects such as SMARTWINERY, pointing out that “a good communication strategy often makes the difference between a successful project and one that goes unnoticed”.
Smart and connected winery
After the presentations, the attendees were able to visit and learn first-hand about SMARTWINERY's experimental winery, in a visit guided by Ricardo Jurado, technical director of Grupo Agrovin.
During the visit, Ricardo explained that the winery has 4 different areas: harvest reception area, fermentation area, bottling and aging.
Ricardo Jurado showed the most revolutionary equipment designed in the company's own Technology department. He also highlighted the connectivity capacity of more traditional but no less innovative equipment, such as the latest generation pneumatic press with organic tangential filter.
In the case of SMARTWINERY's fermentation area, this process is carried out in 150l, 500l and 1,500l tanks, which are divided into generic, self-emptying and isobaric tanks (necessary for the production of sparkling wines).
Then, he differentiated between the filtering and bottling area, the former being equipped with equipment such as the tangential filter, the centrifuge and the microfiltration equipment. In addition, Ricardo focused on other more technological equipment such as: the ultrasonic equipment, which makes SMARTWINERY special, the cation exchange equipment with resins and gas management equipment. In the second differentiated area, the bottling area, the corking bottling machine and the labeling encapsulating machine were the protagonists, forming a continuous bottling line at the end of the process. In addition to more specific equipment for the production of sparkling wines, such as the isobaric filler and the caging corker, machinery such as the “Bag in Box” filler was also on display.
Finally, the aging area, consisting of three oak barrels (both French and American) and a barrel for fermentation of white wines, as well as aging on lees, was also on display.
Of special relevance in SMARTWINERY are the sensors that connect it (such as the smart stoppers created by Agrovin), whose data can be monitored through a control panel located in the pilot winery itself. This control panel, which attendees were able to discover at user level, can control pumping over, redox potential and micro and macro-oxygenation.
SMARTWINERY, in continuous improvement
The day concluded with a technical debate on the implementation of 4.0 technologies in wineries. Representatives of wineries from all over the country had the opportunity to share their needs and concerns about applications, whose use could be considered interesting in the winemaking process.
In addition, SMARTWINERY continues working on the installation of the sensor system to finish connecting this winery and make possible an accurate control of multiple variables involved in the fermentation, aging and storage of wine.
To end with a good taste, the attendees were offered a tasting of the first wines produced in the experimental cellar of SMARTWINERY with Tempranillo and Patricia varieties.
Who is working on SMARTWINERY?
The international SMARTWINERY project was launched at the end of 2023 with the aim of optimizing the winemaking process through the creation of a smart winery to reduce costs and increase the production capacity of traditional wineries, while reducing processing times and improving the quality of the wine. For its implementation, this project has a budget of 3,052,896.18€ and has received funding of 2,137,027.32€ from the Interregional Investment Facility for Innovation (I3) within the framework of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
SMARTWINERY focuses on the installation of an experimental winery equipped with Grupo Agrovin's most innovative technology, applied to the main production phases and integrated into a digital platform for monitoring and data analysis.
The Greek company NEUROPUBLIC, as experts in the development of integrated applications and information systems, will be involved in identifying the appropriate detection and actuation technologies to be integrated with the data management platform and decision system.
For its part, the University of Murcia, in addition to coordinating the project, will be responsible for the analysis and monitoring of the wines produced in the new experimental winery to ensure their maximum quality.
Finally, the Wine Technology Platform, as a national association for the promotion of R&D&I in the wine sector, is in charge of the communication of SMARTWINERY as well as its transfer to the national and international winemaking sector.
