27 December 2022
The CLIMACAL Project concludes with the development of an intelligent tool for the early prediction of grape quality based on agroclimatic conditions in vineyards, with an accuracy close to 90% that will allow participating wineries to anticipate the harvest in future seasons and adapt their winemaking strategies based on grape quality estimations. Although the project has finished, information will continue to be integrated each season, so the tool's accuracy will improve as the volume of available data increases.
3 different learning techniques have been tested to train the models, comparing the results of each and selecting those that allow for a better fit of the predictive models.
During the project's development, grape quality data from 8 seasons (2015-2022) and corresponding meteorological data for this period were collected and analyzed. This allowed for the determination of the most relevant correlations between quality parameters and meteorological variables, and the development of predictive models that enable:
- Estimating the physicochemical parameters of the grape based on climatic variables during the first months of the season, prior to the first grape analyses.
- Predicting the evolution of grape quality parameters over the next 7 days, based on previously taken measurements and the evolution of meteorological data over a considered period, i.e., from the last grape analysis until the time of estimation.
CLIMACAL Project
The CLIMACAL project emerged in October 2021 as a result of the collaboration between Pernod Ricard Winemakers Spain, Bodegas Faustino, and the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker) with the aim of developing a new intelligent tool for the early prediction of grape quality based on agroclimatic conditions in vineyards. The project is co-financed by the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), with a total grant of €72,165.25.
