Aerial Farming: Monitoring Vineyards from an Airplane

As part of our quest to continuously improve wine quality, we embarked on a soil mapping study of Jordan Estate vineyards in 2009. That summer, John Jordan began taking our assistant winemaker and myself up in his Beechcraft Bonanza airplane to access our vineyard blocks from a bird’s eye view. The aerial view of the vineyards, captured in this aerial farming video, offers insight into soil and vine vigor changes not as visible at the ground level. Because our precision farming philosophy requires nurturing vineyard blocks on a vine-by-vine basis, we utilize any tool available. Since John has had his pilot’s license since age 17, we can quickly and conveniently fly over the estate, monitoring vineyards with this insightful exercise. The aerial photos we take from the airplane will be used to compare changes in vine growth, leaf color and soil color against the soil mapping study findings. Then we can adjust our vineyard management practices to help unevenly growing vines become uniform with our finest vines. Mildly stressed vineyards with uniformly grown and ripened grapes produce higher quality wines.