24 Feb Here is “Genesis”, the robot that prepares the wine of the future. It does the work of an entire cellar by itself
Here is “Genesis”, the robot that prepares the wine of the future. It does the work of an entire cellar by itself
It is a creation of Donato Lanati, the Oscar-winning winemaker, who studies the DNA of the grape and winemaking in his laboratory and research center in Fubine, in Monferrato
All Genesis lacks is the word: the prototype also has antennas, it looks like the cousin of Sphero Drone, the robot from Star Wars, but in reality it is a unique winemaker in the world, a masterpiece of engineering and electronics applied to wine, created by that genius of the bunch that is Donato Lanati, Oscar winner as best winemaker in 2015. In its “belly” Genesis hides an entire cellar. “It can contain up to 200 kilos of grapes and produce 100 litres of wine, ready to be refined” says Dora Marchi, biologist and oenologist of Enosis, a 2500 square metre oasis, with a 17th century farmhouse nestled among the vineyards of 37 native Italian varieties, which is a “Meraviglia”: it is called just that, in memory of the ancient name of this hill – Maraviglia – on the hills of Fubine, in the heart of Monferrato. Enosis is a laboratory, but also a university and a clinic, with a team of 18 wine doctors, including biologists, oenologists, cellarmen, agronomists, chemists, food and food safety technicians.
And Genesis, this three-legged computerized “tub”, with a conical cap and body to improve contact between the pressed grapes and the already liquid part, is its flagship creation, it is a cellar in the size of a cheat sheet, indispensable for studying the optimal winemaking process depending on the grape variety. From the central porthole of the robot the “doctors” follow the maceration, the pumping over, the délestage, and from the console the temperature and oxygen are managed. It is like doing an “MRI” on that natural process that is winemaking, something that only 70 years ago began with foot pressing. Enosis has given birth to 12 Genesis. But it does not sell them, business is not the goal of Lanati, who here is called “the man who whispers to the vineyards”, but rather quality and research. He is the luminary of this grape “clinic” (closed to the public, but open to graduates of the University of Enology) where the patient par excellence is the grape: “We have been studying it for over 40 years”.
Dora Marchi, his right-hand woman, knows how to move in the labyrinth of study rooms, laboratories and classrooms full of monitors, refrigerators and microscopes. There is a machine that weighs, counts, presses the grapes and then measures the juice, here a team of “Csi dell’uva” works, who manages to extract the DNA of the grape: “It is important because it is the synthesis of a territory, inside it there is the history of an entire year, the climate, the scent, the health of the land”, says Marchi, who arrived from Tuscany 20 years ago to support Lanati in the research. We follow her into the “psychedelic” laboratory – they called it that – where colored lamps and variable temperatures “lull” the must: it resembles a nursery with incubators, and the monitors follow the cellular biochemistry of yeasts and bacteria 24 hours a day.
Then the wines finally rest, far from light and heat, inside the “infernot”, typical corridors dug into the tuff that are still used in Monferrato and that Enosis wanted to preserve: “It’s our message of love for the territory”. Finally, the toast. Obviously with special glasses: Lanati invented two, the one with “Saturn’s ring” to optimize the perception of aromas, and the last one, last year, with the hollow glass for the natural and scenic rise of the bubbles. Cheers.