Blog

Alone on the tractor, alone at the press, alone with the secateurs

Much of the work on a small vineyard is solitude. The best thinking happens in row seven and almost none of it survives. What we are building in Elf to change that.

How to start a winery when you don't live there

Starting a vineyard and winery 100 km from home, on weekends and holidays, with a job and kids. What we got right, what we got wrong, and how other absentee growers around the world handle it.

The EU wine e-label obligation, and why it reaches Australian producers

Since December 2023 every wine sold in the EU needs an ingredient list and nutrition info, most of it behind a QR code. What stays on the glass, what the word "Ingredients" is for, and why exporting to the EU makes this an Australian problem too.

AI measures vine water stress in Napa. What does a small vineyard get out of it?

A summary of an Inside Winemaking episode with Elias Fernandez (Shafer Vineyards, Napa) plus commentary: why an AI water-management tool (Tule) barely

Autonomous tractors in New Zealand. What does a small vineyard get out of it?

A summary of an AWRI podcast on vineyard automation (David Allen, Pernod Ricard NZ) with commentary: why the Oxin autonomous tractor won't scale down

Vineyard paperwork, EU vs Australia: what changes if you move to the southern hemisphere

EU electronic treatment records, cellar registers and PDO rules compared with Australia's Label Integrity Program, AWRI spray diary and WET.

How AI is rewriting the vineyard weather forecast

The classic forecast gives one number for tomorrow night. Google DeepMind's WeatherNext generates dozens of scenarios and turns frost and spray decisi

EU electronic spray records from 2027: what winegrowers need to know

From 2027 the EU requires plant protection product records to be electronic and machine-readable, with no area threshold. What changes, who it covers,

Leaf sensor - first steps

We're building our own sensor to monitor the microclimate right at the vine leaf - where fungal disease risk is actually decided. AHT15, LoRa, cloud i

BBCH growth stages - why every winemaker should know them

The BBCH scale is an international system of plant growth stages. Knowing your vines' stage lets you make better decisions about protection, irrigatio

Our sprinklers watered the lawn during a downpour - the culprit was a clogged rain gauge

For three weeks in July our irrigation watered the lawn almost every night - even when 18 mm of rain fell. The weather station said it was dry. How a

Before VineyardElf, there was a frost-protection script - the story of our side project

VineyardElf started as a box of electronics screwed to a post in our vineyard - an OpenSprinkler controller and a frost-protection script. Here's how

After harvest: what to write down now so you are not guessing in spring

Poland's new alcohol law: what actually changes for a small winery, and what has been banned for decades

Poland's Sejm passed an amendment to its alcohol law on 8 October 2026: a beer advertising ban, a nationwide night sales ban, legal online wine sales with e-ID checks, and an 'informational-cultural' carve-out for wine producers. What is new, what was banned for decades, and what to do with your winery's website.

What Australia's Label Integrity Program actually asks of a small producer

Alone on the tractor, alone at the press, alone with the secateurs. Why a winegrower needs someone to talk to

Much of the work on a small vineyard is solitude: spraying, pruning, pressing, usually alone. The best thinking happens in row seven and almost none of it survives. What we are building in Elf to change that.

How to start a winery when you don't live there

Starting a vineyard and winery 100 km from home, on weekends, around full time jobs. What we got right, what we got wrong, and how other absentee growers around the world handle it.

The EU wine e-label obligation, and why it reaches Australian producers

Since December 2023 every wine sold in the EU needs an ingredient list and nutrition info, most of it behind a QR code. Here is what stays on the glass, what the word Ingredients is for, and why exporting to the EU makes this an Australian problem too.

Vineyard paperwork, EU vs Australia: what changes if you move to the southern hemisphere

EU electronic treatment records, cellar registers and PDO rules compared with Australia's Label Integrity Program, AWRI spray diary and WET. A practical guide for growers and winemakers looking across hemispheres.

How AI is rewriting the vineyard weather forecast

The classic forecast gives one number for tomorrow night. Google DeepMind's WeatherNext generates dozens of scenarios and turns frost and spray decisions into probabilities. What that changes for a small vineyard.

EU electronic spray records from 2027: what winegrowers need to know

From 2027 the EU requires plant protection product records to be electronic and machine-readable, with no area threshold. What changes, who it covers, what a record must contain, and where national rules differ.

Leaf sensor - first steps

We're building our own sensor to monitor the microclimate right at the vine leaf - where fungal disease risk is actually decided. AHT15, LoRa, cloud integration.

Before VineyardElf, there was a frost-protection script - the story of our side project

VineyardElf started as a box of electronics screwed to a post in our vineyard - an OpenSprinkler controller and a frost-protection script. Here's how tinkering at Winnica Pustkowie grew into a platform.

BBCH growth stages - why every winemaker should know them

The BBCH scale is an international system of plant growth stages. Knowing your vines' stage lets you make better decisions about protection, irrigation and harvest.

Our sprinklers watered the lawn during a downpour - the culprit was a clogged rain gauge

For three weeks in July our irrigation watered the lawn almost every night - even when 18 mm of rain fell. The weather station said it was dry. How a clogged rain gauge and free Open-Meteo taught us not to trust a single sensor.