The discovery and design phase of the National Vineyard Register build project has prioritised direct engagement with grapegrowers and key industry stakeholders.
Since March, Wine Australia and Map of Ag have worked directly with growers and key organisations through workshops and one‑on‑one interviews to ensure the platform meets the sector’s requirements for delivering supply information, and is practical and intuitive for growers and producers to use.
A detailed discovery report has been produced, capturing the user requirements identified by industry, prioritising the features as ‘must, should, could or won’t’ be in the final design.
Building on these findings, the design phase sought to flesh out the features and requirements developing tangible interface visualisations for testing with growers and regional representatives.
A workshop was held with growers and regional association representatives in Yarra Valley in mid-April, which generated high quality feedback on the proposed functionality of the platform. This collaborative process marked an exciting milestone for the project and their feedback has influenced the proposed features of the National Vineyard Register. Special thanks to Grove Gilligan and Wine Yarra Valley for hosting the workshop and providing refreshments.
Through the design phase, flexibility emerged as a critical design principle so that the platform caters for different preferences and the diversity of roles (e.g. owner growers, vineyard managers, leaseholders) and interests across industry. This means that a grower who wants to create detailed records and maps of their plantings and benchmark against their region is supported along with an association or winery who wants a quick and easy way to provide the basic information to contribute to the overall supply picture.
A Statement of Work for the development (build) phase of the project will be produced at the end of the design phase to encapsulate the industry-identified requirements. This will provide a final cost and details of all the features of the National Vineyard Register. Wine Australia expects to sign off on the build phase by late May, pending alignment to the project budget.
Ongoing stakeholder engagement and consultation
An extensive program of stakeholder briefings and feedback sessions has been delivered and more are scheduled throughout May and June. Key industry organisations – including the AGW Vignerons’ Committee and Biosecurity Committee, Wine Victoria, Murray Valley Wine, Riverina Winegrape Growers’ and Australian Commercial Wine Producers’ Boards and the Hunter Valley industry committee – are being engaged to help guide the platform and its adoption by industry.
National Vineyard Scan to be updated
In parallel to the National Vineyard Register build, an updated National Vineyard Scan will be completed to provide industry with accurate, up-to-date vineyard mapping.
This project will involve the use of a powerful form of AI called a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) – similar to the technology used in facial recognition – applied to satellite images. It will also use radar satellite data (that can "see through" clouds and detect the physical shape of vine rows) alongside standard optical imagery and will incorporate a global vegetation height dataset to separate vineyards from forests. This combination is clever and well-suited to the problem – representing the significant advances made in this field since the scan last in 2020. The cost is within the budget allocated in the project for this purpose and is expected to be reproducible annually for a much lower ongoing cost.
Alongside the National Vineyard Register, this scan will support better regional and national decision making by offering reliable data for planning, benchmarking, and strategic investment.