Grapegrowers and winemakers will be able to tap into research from the vineyard to the bottle in a free online event to be hosted by the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre on 28 October.

The NWGIC, an alliance between Charles Sturt University, the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the NSW Wine Industry Association, will showcase its research to benefit the wine sector.

Centre director, Professor Leigh Schmidtke said the online format means people from across the country will be able to tune in.

“The research being presented will be relevant for Australian wine regions and the online presentation means you can join in from wherever you are,” Professor Schmidtke said.

“This is an opportunity to find out about emerging technology that will help make decisions in the vineyard and the winery in the future.

“One project is developing a smartphone app to help identify and manage nutrient disorders, there’s also new techniques for assessing the levels of bunch rot contamination and measuring different forms of Copper (Cu) in wine.

“People will also be able to hear about research that’s examined the correlations between the sensory properties of Australian Shiraz wines, their chemical profiles and the climatic regions from which the grapes were sourced.

“Defining a terroir influence will allow Australian fine wine producers to substantiate uniqueness claims to command premium prices in a global context – this project has shown that this is possible.”

The NWGIC Research Update will be held on Wednesday 28 October from 10 am to 11:30am and people can register here.

It will feature four research projects:

• The development of a smartphone app to identify and manage nutrient deficiency in grapevines – Dr Suzy Rogiers, principal research scientist NSW DPI
• Techniques for determining the levels of grey mould contamination of grapes- Professor Chris Steel, Charles Sturt
• Measurement of different forms of Cu in wine- Dr Andrew Clark, Charles Sturt
• Benchmarking regional and sub-regional Shiraz fine wines- Dr John Blackman and Dr Sijing Li, Charles Sturt.

Are you a Daily Wine News subscriber? If not, click here to join our mailing list. It’s free!