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Get To Know Argentina Wine | Wine Folly

If you love Malbec, Argentina is your ultimate wine region. But that’s not all the Argentina has to offer! See the full guide here: https://argentina.guides.winefolly.com/

Spanning out from Mendoza, you’ll find a wide array of Argentinian specialties from robust and age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon to delicate and floral white wines made with Torrontés.

What makes Argentina’s wines so unique is the influence of the landscape on its wines. For example, many of Argentina’s top vineyard sites sit next to Andes Mountains at very high altitudes. It’s this influence from the mountains and sun conditions that makes Argentina’s wines so unmistakable.

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When decision-makers consider implementing Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, they typically want assurance that their investments will pay off and that service providers’ offerings will meet or exceed their needs. 

Reading IoT case studies can show business leaders what’s possible and help them make more confident choices about when and how to implement the technology.

These studies below show how the IoT opens diverse possibilities for businesses, helping them meet current and future goals. 

5 IoT case studies

1. Improving Insights at a Vineyard

Industry: Agriculture

Use case: Applying the IoT and data analytics to track statistics from fields and equipment across the complete grape-growing process. 

Outcome: Deep Sky Vineyards has locations in Arizona and Argentina. Business leaders wanted a better way to oversee operations after a broken valve caused a flood. The company used a Google Cloud IoT solution that caused a 75% reduction in human error costs. Since the technology gives water flow and soil moisture metrics, it raised crop efficiency by 50% by preventing adverse conditions that could cause rot. 

Cloud technology also allowed pushing over-the-air updates to remote devices. That convenience allowed the vineyard to maintain visibility over its sites and use the latest software versions. 

2. Streamlining Contactless COVID-19 Testing

Industry: Health care

Use case: Building pods for contactless COVID-19 testing

Outcome: As the coronavirus spread around the world, it became critical to care for people without putting providers at unnecessary risk. For example, one Italian hospital used robots to take patients’ vitals. In this IoT case study, Microsoft Azure’s cloud and IoT solutions allowed for creating contactless testing stations in less than two months.

The solutions served as stations where people could drive or walk up to a window for their tests. The portability allowed setting up testing centers in remote locations or anywhere they’d most likely reach the most at-risk groups. 

The testing pods have computerized translation services to help non-English speakers as well as artificial intelligence (AI) cameras that ensure everyone wears masks. 

IoT innovations: 85 Top IoT Devices

3. Minimizing Labeling Errors During Automotive Production

Industry: Manufacturing

Use case: Using smart cameras and machine learning (ML) to help team members apply the correct regulatory labels to vehicles in a factory. 

Outcome: Since the IoT can alert people to issues before they cause outages, manufacturing and industrial brands are particularly interested in its potential. It can bring attention to faulty equipment and also reduce human errors. Brands under the Volkswagen Group umbrella must apply 25 different labels during vehicle production, and each one has more than 2,000 variations based on country specifics. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provided a cloud-based IoT solution that uses machine learning, automated cameras and IoT apps to identify label errors and alert workers to the issues.

The labels are in several languages, but this method translates them into an employee’s native tongue. Volkswagen Group representatives reported that this process improvement reduced the complexity of workers’ tasks and led to an overall improvement in vehicle quality. 

4. Enhancing the Management of Solar-Powered Trash Receptacles 

Industry: Waste management

Use case: Using IoT and the cloud to improve oversight of solar trash cans in a given location or community. 

Outcome: BigBelly Solar relied on Telit to develop a better way for people to manage waste disposal points. This IoT case study caused an 80% reduction in management costs and gave customers a browser-based console for better visibility. The associated cloud functionality also facilitated remote diagnostics if a particular trash can malfunctioned in a customer’s network. 

Moreover, an authorized party could use the cloud interface to remotely update a garbage receptacle’s software, keeping it functioning smoothly. BigBelly Solar has compacting and non-compacting versions. This technology works with both kinds to verify the fullness level of a given container, saving waste managers from having their staff members make unnecessary trips to check it. 

5. Narrowing the Digital Divide to Facilitate Learning

Industry: Education

Use case: Bringing reliable internet access to the 70% of students in a Texas school district who did not have it at home. This approach also created secure outdoor access points. 

Outcome: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a quick shift to remote learning for many students around the world. This IoT use case involved using products from Cisco’s IoT line to extend the school’s internet access into the homes of children who needed it to continue their studies. 

After first testing this method by bringing dependable, private Wi-Fi to one cluster of houses, the school district’s leaders decided to roll out the technology to eight other groups of residences in the area. The people who worked on this project are developing a blueprint for use across the country, helping kids connect beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Oscar Rico is the school district’s executive director of technology. He explains his drive to find a solution, saying, “When your family can afford internet, you can get up, log in, and do your schoolwork from home. But 70% of our students don’t have internet access at home. Maybe some have access to a parent’s cell phone with unreliable internet. But I knew most would be sitting at a makeshift desk, working their way through a pile of paper. I wanted to find a way to change that.”

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In recent decades, consumers have become increasingly conscious of how our food is produced, and the local, sustainable food movement has moved into the mainstream. Many Americans have transitioned to plant-based diets as awareness mounts about factory farming and harmful large-scale agricultural practices like synthetic pesticide use, soil depletion, and harmful runoff from fertilizer-laden fields.

Yet, wine – a product of major importance in culture and cuisine – is largely left out of this conversation, although its environmental impact is significant. In France, where wine production accounts for only 3% of agricultural land, 20% of the country’s pesticide use occurs on vineyards, according to Decanter. Conventional vineyards are mostly monocultures that depend on intensive pesticide and fungicide use, thousands of pounds of which are used on California vineyards each year. Greenhouse gases are emitted from harvesting machinery, and CO2 as a byproduct from the alcoholic fermentation process employed by many winemakers.

Finding sustainable, environmentally-conscious wines takes some know-how, including some skepticism and caution about greenwashing. The FDA doesn’t regulate certifications or terminology on wine labels, unlike many other foods, and there’s no ingredients label on a bottle of wine.

The four main, recognized wine labels to look for are organic, biodynamic, natural, and sustainable. In general, organic wines avoid synthetic ingredients, biodynamic wines are created with a more holistic approach, natural wines use minimal processes and additives, and sustainable wines reduce waste and emissions. However, each of these terms is much more nuanced.

Organic

Like other food products with the USDA Organic label, organic wineries use no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or insecticides in their fields. This official label indicates that the vinification processes (AKA winemaking) was organic, employing no sulfites – which help preserve the wine and kill bacteria – that aren’t naturally occurring, and fermenting with only certified organic yeast.

The USDA also has a “made with organic grapes” label, which means the grapes themselves were grown organically, but the winemaking process itself wasn’t organic, and small amounts of sulfites and non-organic yeast might have been added.

This official government label is widely recognized for its rigorous certification process for farms, and is a trusted indicator of the practices used on wineries.

Biodynamic

Founded by Rudolf Steiner, biodynamic agriculture is a holistic approach to farming, taking into account the entire ecosystem and mixing the spiritual with the scientific. This kind of regenerative farming focuses on revitalizing degraded soil, increasing biodiversity, and sequestering carbon to reverse climate change. For example, a biodynamic farm might raise honeybees, maintain vegetable gardens, compost, and engage in other practices that benefit the whole farm ecosystem. Biodynamic farming is somewhat spiritual as well, and base planting/harvesting schedules on the lunar phases of the moon.

Like its organic counterparts, biodynamic winemaking doesn’t utilize synthetic chemicals, and there is a similar difference between biodynamic wine and grapes grown biodynamically: the former means that the winemaker used biodynamically-grown grapes and didn’t add yeast or make other adjustments to the product, while the latter means that the grapes themselves were grown biodynamically, but the process itself wasn’t necessary biodynamic (AKA the fermenting process might have utilized yeast additives, etc.).

The nonprofit organization Demeter certifies biodynamic wines and vineyards, and unlike most other wine certifications, the biodynamic label is recognized globally.

Natural

By its most basic definition, natural wines use the least possible amount of additives, chemicals, and technological processes; a natural wine in its purest form would be made from solely fermented grape juice, unlike conventional wines that often have added sugars, colors, stabilizers, and even animal additives like fish bladder and egg whites. While not necessarily made with organic or biodynamic grapes, many natural winemakers follow similar standards and use no chemical inputs.

The natural wine-production process harkens back to a more traditional way of making wine, employing no artificial practices like filtration, mechanical separation, etc. The absence of sulfites is a common attribute of natural wine, although small amounts (10-25 parts per million, as opposed to the 350 allowed in conventional wines) are usually considered acceptable in vintner circles. Given the lack of sulfites and filtration processes, the stability of the wine is often different; it might look cloudier as well, but many wine-lovers claim the taste is superior to conventional wine. Unlike the U.S., Europe has its own official natural wine label.

Sustainable

“Sustainable” wine is somewhat of an umbrella term with multiple certifications underneath it. Sustainable wineries tend to reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions while conserving water, but the chosen practices are left up to the farmer.

The Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing (CCSW) label is one of the most widely recognized, issued by the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance for California wines, which account for 81% of all wine produced in the U.S. The vineyard, winery, or both can be certified, all of which are delineated with different labels. Considerations include pest, waste, and water management, as well as employee rights.

LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) Certified is another recognized label for wineries in the Pacific Northwest, which looks at the attributes of a region and make rules based on the unique conditions of that area; for example, some land-use practices might be permitted in an arid region but not in a wetter one. Headquartered in Lodi, California, where 1/5 of California grapes are grown, the Lodi Roles certification has many standards for its wines and wineries, including the Pesticide Environmental Assessment System (PEAS), which considers the impact of pesticides on the ecosystem and vineyard workers. Labor is a main consideration of the SIP (Sustainability in Practice) certification as well.

So, how do you identify truly environmentally-conscious wine?

Many wine stores have separate sections for environmentally-conscious wine, which is a good place to start. When perusing the aisles, look for the above certifications/labels; keep in mind that organic is an official, highly-regulated label in the U.S., unlike the other three, although they do tell consumers about the values and practices of a vineyard or winery.

Certification is often a lengthy, expensive, and complicated process; becoming a certified-organic farm takes three years and can cost upwards of $1,000. Some vineyards might not have the time or resources to become certified, but still follow the same standards as those that are. Do your own research about wineries to find out what their practices are; some that are uncertified might even go further than those that are when it comes to environmentally-friendly practices and ethical labor standards.

If possible, look for wines local to your region (that is, if you live in a wine-producing state). Like local food, wines produced nearby require much less transportation and your business contributes to the local economy.

Environmentally-conscious wines can be just as delicious as conventional wine, if not more so! Check out Food and Wine’s list of 10 Planet-Friendly Wines for recommendations to get started.

Linnea graduated from Skidmore College in 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Environmental Studies, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Along with her most recent position at Hunger Free America, she has interned with the Sierra Club in Washington, DC., Saratoga Living Magazine, and Philadelphia’s NPR Member Station, WHYY.

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