The objective of the “Libatio – Smart system for real-time monitoring of evaporation in wine aging” project is to digitise the wine aging stage, allowing winemakers to reduce losses caused by evaporation inside wooden barrels, reduce the risks associated with current manual control and mitigation techniques, and the time spent performing those tasks.

In order to achieve the aforementioned purpose, a comprehensive system will be validated, able to monitor wine quality and wine volume reduction due to evaporation in real time, through the implementation of autonomous remote sensing devices attached to wooden barrels to control key parameters that influence evaporation. Artificial intelligence algorithms will process the data. A user-friendly web platform and mobile app will be developed to display the data and enable the customisation of alerts and notifications to help winemakers reduce problems with production.

LIBATIO aims to reduce the current evaporation rate from 7.5% to 2.5% – a 66% reduction.

The project is a collaboration between Sparks, Circuits and Robotics, Nova Industria Galega SL and Viña Costeira SGC.

Final report summary
Thanks to a smart bung and a cloud platform connected to a mobile app, wine experts and cellar technicians can have access to the current status of wine ageing in every wooden barrel. A configurable system of alerts has also been implemented to notify users about any unexpected event. Libatio is capable of making short-term predictions to reduce reaction time even further. We are currently in discussion with more customers to deploy the system and collect more data to improve the machine learning models and the predictions made by our platform.