About Smart Viticulture

Dr Richard Smart founded Smart Viticultural Services in 1990. The business was renamed Smart Viticulture in 1997. The company now operates from Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. While this location might seem unlikely, Richard has clients all over the world and Launceston has good communications and air transport as well as being a nice place to live. Dr Smart also has a major client, Gunns Tamar Ridge Wines, near Launceston.

Smart Viticulture is essentially a viticultural consulting business which relies on Richard's acknowledged expertise. There are now about 200 clients in many countries of the world, ranging in size from the largest vineyards and wineries to the smallest. Richard's aim is to always provide advice on the world's best viticultural practices. While his outlook is quintessentially New World in approach, Richard is very well aware of the richness and heritage of Old World viticulture, and can appreciate both points of view. Most of his clients appreciate his contemporary, international perspective and find it of commercial value.

However, there are affiliated activities which also contribute to the business of Smart Viticulture. These include conducting canopy management workshops, and by now there have been over sixty of these conducted in most vineyard countries of the world. These are based on Dr Smart's best selling book "Sunlight_into_Wine". In 1997 he presented joint seminars on canopy management in Australia with the Oregon vigneron Scott Henry, and developer of the famous training system of the same name. He has also conducted seminars on Italian and Spanish grape varieties in Australia.

Dr Smart is frequently invited to speak at grape and wine conferences around the world. He has a reputation for presentations that are both engaging and humorous.

Another related activity of Smart Viticulture is conducting educational_tours for winegrowers; these have been conducted to Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. One or two are run each year. 

Dr Smart and his colleague, John Gwalter, have developed a method to study vineyard climates. This allows you to find the closest climate match of a grape producing region in the world to any one vineyard site. This is an invaluable guide to variety selection. As well. we can predict risk of frost, downy and powery mildew, and botrytis.

Technical journalism is also an activity of Smart Viticulture. Richard writes regular feature columns for the Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal (www.winetitles.com.au) and also the Californian magazine Practical Winery and Vineyard.(www.practicalwinery.com) As well, he contributes many articles to other vineyard trade magazines.

Richard Smart was a Visiting Professor of Viticulture at Cal Poly in California in 2002 and 2003.

The self given description 'flying vine-doctor' is a good description of Richard's life style. He is constantly passing from the Southern to Northern Hemisphere. As well as offering vineyard visits, Richard also does telephone and fax consultations. Perhaps in the future vineyard visits will be by video teleconferencing! But for the moment the "flying vine-doctor" may be found at airports around the world, often to be seen working with a lap top computer. he is always in touch by email at vinedoc@bigpond.net.au

Would you like advice from Dr Richard Smart, the “flying vine-doctor”? Look under Canopy_Management_Workshops for a sample of what can be done in your region. Would you like to order a copy of "Sunlight into Wine" or get to know about forthcoming tours?