In the old days, winemakers read the sky like scripture, sniffed the soil like a terrier on terrific terroir. They whispered sweet nothings to the vines and occasionally would stroke a leaf and nibble a nodule.
But as the great folk singer, Timothee Chalamet sang; “times they are a- Changing.”
Today, we are smart-phoned and web-zoned… and those phones are “apped up to the max.” There is an app for everything, including for winegrowing. There are hundreds of them, Apps to make Apps and Apps to help spray, track, plant, prune, plan and of course panic!
Welcome to the era of Vine-Tech…where winemaking meets the algorithm.
The Bird App takes flight
Bird Apps? Mmmmmmm, I just love a mini-Chicken Wing.
No, no, no - not that kind of App silly! And what in hell’s turkey is a mini-chicken anyway?
That’s right, we are talking of “Lications” rather than “Etizers.”
Merlin Bird ID and its more Instamaimable cousin BirdNET use audio recognition to identify bird species by their calls.
Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, BirdNET listens to the birdsong in your vineyard and tells you which species are tweeting or warbling. One can even check to see if the starlings are organizing another bird-coup.
It is amazing. One just has to point the phone, press record and within seconds it’ll tell you if that high-pitched squeal is a warbler, a thrush, or a sinister crow.
For winemakers, this isn’t just a parlor trick. It’s science. In biodynamic and organic viticulture, biodiversity is the key. The more complex your vineyard’s ecosystem, the healthier your vines. And birds? Birds are the miners’ canaries in your literal disintegrating, extended, vineyard coal mine metaphor.
Birds eat pests and they spread seeds. Some species even indicate the presence of healthy hedgerows or water sources. Tracking them helps winemakers gauge ecosystem balance.
And yes, there’s a ranking:
Hearing larks? Excellent.
Hearing starlings? Suspicious.
Hearing a murder of crows giving you advice on what you should have said to Derek yesterday after he publicly humiliated you in the grocery store in front of the “Ladies that Lunch” group? Worth considering a trip to the doctor.
We recently spent time with Boris Champy, the Burgundy-based winegrower who made headlines after acquiring high-altitude vines in Nantoux, a once-overlooked slope in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits and is producing excellent wines.
Champy acquired the vineyard from the late, legendary Didier Montchovet, who was an early pioneer of biodynamic farming in Bourgogne.
“Merlin Bird App allows us to enjoy the biodiversity around us,” Boris told us, “I just heard some Nightjars this week after a long day at work. I think it is in our genes to be connected with the nature around us.”
Boris continued, “I believe the grapevines need by their nature to be connected with other plants and animals, in nature it needs a tree to grow on and needs the birds to spread seeds. So, I believe we need to follow those needs in order to get the best grapes!”
In an interview with a winemaker that asked to remain anonymous but whose name rhymes with Panith Tweel, they remarked; “The more warblers I hear, the more alive the soil is,” they told us, “Unless the starlings are back. I don’t trust them. They travel in groups. It’s suspicious…organized.”
Another winemaker who wished to remain anonymous, but whose name also rhymes with Panith Tweel said; “Ever since I started using that bird app, they’ve been watching me back. They don’t fly away. They just sit. Staring. In rows. One time I caught them triangulating around my tractor.”
He hasn’t slept since March.
Of course, birds aren't the only things getting tracked these days. There are plenty of other apps finding their way into the winemaker’s digital toolbox.
AgriWebb and Croptracker are two of the more serious farming management platforms. These allow one to keep tabs on log sprayings, pruning schedules and pest pressure.
For the aerially inclined, VineView offers satellite and drone imagery that reveal ripening zones and signs of disease.
For a data deep-dive, Vinelytics brings together soil health, irrigation analytics and weather forecasting in a sleek dashboard. It’s like having a vineyard consultant in your pocket without the added helicopter fee.
If you need to know who owns the parcel next door? LandGlide lets you snoop on land ownership, zoning and parcel boundaries. Essential tools for anyone looking to expand their holdings.
Then there is the DroppIn App
Call it ScatGPT if you will - the animal poo identification app is taking the world by storm.
That’s right. Snap the scat, then AI tells you what animal Shat.
“That's a deer.”
“That's a wild boar.”
“That's...not from this planet?”
It reminds us of the story of Tom Brown Jr., renowned tracker and author of ‘The Tracker.’ He learned the art of tracking as a young boy from an Apache elder named “Stalking Wolf.”
As a young lad, he was instructed to stare at a fresh animal dropping and watch it as it aged. He did - for hours upon hours. Then Stalking Wolf took him for a walk the next day, going from Poo to Poo, the young prodigy could tell how long it had been since each brown egg had been laid.
TerraStalker™
Then finally, there is the TerraStalker App. Like the Marauder's Map from award-winning novel, “Harry Potter and the Generic Plot-line” but for vineyard owners.
Monitor your workers in real-time: “Julien has entered Row 36. Julien is… standing still and not working!”
“Alert: rival winemaker Claude DeVache has been detected near your experimental Nebbiolo block."
Activate the Hounds!
So, there we have it.
From birdsong to bear poop, soil scans to staff stalking, the vineyards of the future are here, all controlled by a swipe from your phone.
It's listening. It's watching. It’s preparing.