Grupo Príncipe de Viana R+D
Development project for a more sustainable and efficient vineyard management.
Grupo Principe de Viana launches BIGSOSTBIOMA, the winemaking group’s latest Research and Development project for a more sustainable and efficient vineyard management.
Spanning over 29 months from July 30th, 2018 and with a budget of 1,014,704 Euro, Grupo Príncipe de Viana has received for BIGSOSTBIOMA the support and expert collaboration of Spain’s C.D.T.I., the Centre for Industrial Technological Development of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Ever since the group’s foundation in 1983, their philosophy of greatest care of the vineyard as the real producer of their wines has led them to attain their main objective: To produce wines of the greatest possible quality. True to the principle that it is terroir that makes wines, Grupo Principe de Viana has promoted different R+D projects over the past 15 years in order to improve the management of their vineyards, which they apply in all their cellars and vineyards: Rioja Vega (D.O.Ca. Rioja), Finca Albret (D.O. Navarra), Bodegas Príncipe de Viana (D.O. Navarra), and Bodegas Clunia (Vinos de la Tierra de Castilla y León).
Their latest plan, BIGSOSTBIOMA, introduces two specific objectives: On the one hand, to fight against the degradation of the soils, one of the great problems in agriculture today. And on the other, to mitigate the effects of climate change on the vineyard.
The winemaking group will develop a line of research on microbiological biodiversity or MICROBIOMA in the management of the soils in an intelligent vineyard environment, never studied to date. The implementation of meta-data management or BIG DATA systems and creation of algorithms, Grupo Príncipe de Viana aims to advance in their effort to improve soil management in a more sustainable and specific way. Taking into
consideration that the production of high-quality wines requires soils with limited nutrients, the group will analyze the soils vineyard by vineyard in order to decide the correct management in every single case. The BIG DATA management systems will also provide valuable information about wood diseases suffered by the vines as well as on natural yeasts that are found in the soil and which reach the cellar adhered to the skins of the grapes. Natural yeasts, versus artificial ones produced in a laboratory, allow wines to keep the authenticity of their origin.
The achievement of these objectives will be of great value for all of the group’s cellars, in addition to implementing state-of-the-art research and technology in the sector which will allow Grupo Príncipe de Viana to improve the efficiency of the winemaking techniques in terms of the quality of the product obtained as well as from the environmental point of view. This improvement will in turn translate into a competitive advantage over other cellars and will contribute to upgrading the group’s positioning in the domestic and foreign markets.
BIGSOSTBIOMA, yet another huge step with which Grupo Príncipe de Viana approaches the future.
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