For thousands of years, Italy has been instrumental in producing some of the world’s finest wines including the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio. So, in a technological twist, the Enosis Meraviglia wine research company introduced high-tech Genesis, the adorable wine fermenting robot guaranteed to disrupt the wine industry as we know it.
This should be of no surprise as Genesis is built in the very same country that brought us the sleek Lamborghini and stylish Versace. Genesis is a far cry from the ancient Romans stomping grapes with their feet in honor of the Roman god Bacchus. As Sputnik reported, the man-sized robot with many internal sensors accesses the wine in lieu of a human tastemaker and commences the process of winemaking with fermentation.
Italy has a fancy new winemaking robot. #FWx https://t.co/OjCv69XpOU pic.twitter.com/q04dWnaW0k
— Food & Wine (@foodandwine) April 6, 2016
Genesis is shaped a bit like an Italian Pizza oven. The hatch-type door is made of plexiglass and can be used for human observation. There are two separate tanks that communicate to each other. One is at the top, the “head” of Genesis, and the other is the main body of the robot. The silver-colored robot has been carefully programmed to control oxygenation, racking, and maceration, while measuring the sugar potential, extractable athocyanins, and ph levels with sensors and antennas.
The process of fermentation is always the same. First, Genesis will weigh out the grapes, which can be up to 200 kilos. Then, the robot squeezes the grapes. After this process, the amount of juice is measured. The “raw wine” continues to ferment in a “psychedelic laboratory.” While this description sounds a little far out, it is not far from the truth. There are a bunch of colored lamps that make up this sort of fermenting incubator. Meanwhile, the robot keeps a steady temperature, as it obtains information on the wine as it goes through the fermentation metamorphosis. After some time in Genesis, the wine goes down into the cold, dark cellar where it finishes off.
The information provided by the robot will include the types of grapes, how much juice they provide, and any other details that will become beneficial to the winery.
So, why break tradition and have a robot now do this? The wine company believes it all has to do with exclusivity, as announced on their website.
“In order to beat the world competition it is necessary to aim for exclusiveness. In order to achieve exclusivity it is essential to acquiesce to research, as only with the aid of research can we secure and value the exclusivity of tradition.”
Italian Wine Robot Gives Grapes the Mechanical Touch – Sputnik International https://t.co/X2a5d9KYbK #wine #Italy
— Wine News (@WiNews) March 5, 2016
The creator of Genesis is proud papa Dr. Donato Lanati. This human-sized robot is more than a wine fermenter. This adorable robot has a great spirit!
“The almost-human extraterrestrial has a superior mind, but especially a big heart.”
As of now, Genesis will be used only in “experimental vineyards” around Italy. The variety of locations throughout Italy include Tuscany, Sicily, Sardinia, Piedmont, and Calabria. The company sees this innovation as a way to distinguish themselves from other winemakers.
“The Enosis philosophy, is not to simply disperse the legacy of colour, from the constituent forerunners of the grape, which potentially allow the achievement of a wine of quality: of aromas and flavanoids, it is founded on the grape itself, which contains within it all the required objectives of wine-making. Thanks to Genesis, wine-makers can take advantage of the technology of the Selector System in order to program and carry out the maceration, the assembly, the dèlestage and the management of temperature and oxygen.”
Will all vineyards soon have an ” almost-human extraterrestrial” with a big heart? Odds are, this cute little Italian winemaking robot will revolutionize the winemaking industry as we know it.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]