A robot that can ferment 60 batches of wine at once

he winemaking robot from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAe), aka Vinimag, is the culmination of five years’ “development of a mini-winery and equipment suited to the winemaking characterisation of a large number of grape varieties with a small amount of grapes”, explains Marie-Agnès Ducasse, from the French Institute of Vine and Wine (IFV). The entire project cost 3.2 million euros, funded by the three partners, private industry and public money.

Located in a room where the temperature is a constant 16°C, Vinimag will automate small-batch winemaking for future trials on the 8,500 accessions and crosses from the Vassal vine conservation collection in southern France, which is currently being moved to a nearby location. “We will be able to freeze batches of 1 kg of white or red grapes from a single vine and continuously test their performance faced with water stress, climate change or disease without running the risk of handling errors. The robot will give us winemaking information sooner and help us speed up the varietal selection process”, continued Ducasse.

The robot can ferment 1,000 samples per year, in 60 reactors fitted with a removable lid and a double piston, without having to worry about the actual harvest season. The grapes are thawed and then automatically mixed to replicate the crushing process before being put into tanks. The cap can also be punched and the juice homogenised. “The Vinimag arm can take out a reactor every minute, place it on scales, and infer its CO2 release and progress of fermentation”, explains Frédéric Habouzit from Inrae Pech Rouge.