There are a number of steps you can take to prepare for your first vintrace harvest. Although none of the following steps are required, setting them up helps automate certain processes which can save you time and decrease the potential for errors.

Setting Up Defaults

Setting up default data and thresholds makes data entry easier, faster, and more accurate. You can set up defaults and thresholds in the Winery Setup window. Refer to the table below for details.

SET UP ...	IN WINERY SETUP UNDER ...
Defaults	Setup Options > Work-Flow > Defaults
Minimum and maximum load thresholds	Setup Options > Equipment > Scales
Default extraction rates	Setup Options > General > System Policy > Edit Default Extraction Rates
Minimum and maximum extraction rates	Setup Options > General > System Policy > Edit Threshold Settings
Extraction rates for a specific varietal	Setup Options > Production > Variety

The Block Overview Window

The Block Overview window lets you manage your blocks details, fruit sampling, and viticulture assessments.

To access the Block Overview window:

1. Click  More Options from the sidebar.
2. From the Harvest tile, click Block Overview.

On the left side of the Block Overview window are filters that let you find blocks based on your specified criteria. Click a block in the search results to view its details.

If you need to add a new block, vineyard, or grower, click New.

Block Details Tab

The Block Details tab displays key information such as the grower, varietal, and region (sub AVA). The tab also displays a chart showing the expected versus received tonnage for the life of this block in the system.

To edit any of the information in the Block Details tab, click the  pencil icon.

Advanced Details Tab

The Advanced Details tab displays additional information about the block. Click the pencil icon beside the Admin or Agriculture column to edit information in the column.

Vineyard/Grower Tab

This tab displays information about the vineyard and grower that are linked to the block, including contact information for the grower. Click the  pencil icon to edit the information about the block’s vineyard or grower.

Lab Tab

This tab displays the block’s fruit maturity data as recorded in the system each season. From the Lab tab you can:

• Add maturity lab data by clicking Record a Fruit Sample.
• Display a historical chart of analysis against this block by selecting a vintage and clicking Chart.
• Export the data to a CSV file by clicking Download CSV.

Seasonal Tab

The Seasonal tab displays viticulture assessment information for the selected vintage as well as scheduled fruit bookings and fruit receivals into your facility.

Click a booking to view its details. This displays the booking’s details in the Fruit Intake Console.

Click a fruit receival to view details. This displays the receival’s details in the Intake Delivery window.
 

Assessments Tab

The Assessments tab displays all past assessments recorded against this block for the selected vintage. An assessment is used to record the seasonal progress of a block for a particular vintage. By making regular assessments of a block you can easily see how the block is tracking over time in the lead up to harvest.

To view an assessment, click the View link.

To record an assessment, click New Assessment. This also updates the information displayed on the Seasonal tab.

Refer to our Recording Seasonal Block and Viticulture Assessments article to learn more.

This feature is only available with the Professional and Enterprise plans.

Fruit Placement Tab

The Fruit Placement tab displays the current bulk stock dispatches, and packagings where this block has been involved. It enables you to answer auditors’ questions relating to the destination of fruit received at your scales and recorded in vintrace.

Setting Up Analysis Templates

Analysis templates are used throughout vintrace to group common metrics together and provide the necessary fields when recording measurements in different situations. They can save you time when you need to record metrics or request an analysis. You can also specify the default template used for fruit sampling, fruit receival, and ferments. This would cause the template to be automatically selected in those situations.

When you add an analysis template, you pre-define the metrics that are included in the analysis. 

The analysis template can also be used to change the product’s state. If you’re using vintrace for costing, you can also track the cost amount for the analysis.

Examples of harvest-specific analysis templates that you might want to add include:

• Vineyard samples
• B&Ts
• Grape phenolic panel
• Juice panel
• Press panel

Other examples include:

• Fruit at scale
• Cold soak
• Monthly
• Weekly RS
• Weekly ML
• Chem panel
• Smoke Taint
• SO2 addition confirmation
• SO2 check
• Baker’s lab juice panel
• ETS Juice panel (lab specific)
• ETS wine panel
• ETS Scorpion
• Post crossflow
• Pre-bottling

We recommend that you review the standard templates prior to vintage to ensure all metrics recorded by your lab are present. You can view and edit your analysis template in the Winery Setup window, by selecting Setup Options > Production > Analysis Template.

Setting Up Additions

When you set up an additive in vintrace, you can configure it so that it not only tracks the linked stock item when the additive is used, but also sets the cause treatment state of the wine.

At a minimum, you should ensure the following:

• Yeast additives should start alcoholic fermentation. You can confirm this by looking at the additive’s Cause Treatment. Refer to our Managing Ferments article to learn more.

• Malo additives should start malolactic fermentation. You can confirm this by looking at the additive’s Cause Treatment.

• If you’re using an SO2 solution, be sure that the additive’s strength is set correctly. You can confirm this by reviewing the additive’s metric weighting.

Setting Up Additive Templates

Additive templates make writing work orders easier, especially when you’re adding more than one additive. For example, we could set up a Yeast Inoculation additive template that includes our additives (i.e., DAP and Yeast - VL2) and their rate. You can also configure the additive template so that it sets the cause treatment and changes the product state.

When you use an additive template for a work order, vintrace automatically fills in the additives and their rates of add.

If for any reason you need to change the rate for a work order, or include another additive, you can do so when you create the work order.

Below is a list of additive templates that you might want to consider adding:

• 1st SO2 add
• Monthly SO2 (KMBS)
• Monthly 6% SO2 (solution)
• 1st nutrient add
• 2nd nutrient add
• Inoculation

Setting Up Standard Notes

Standard notes in vintrace are your SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). We recommend that you set up standard notes so that you can quickly include them in your work orders. For example, we could create a standard note for your inoculation procedures.

Instead of having to enter these procedures each time you want to include them in a work order, you can simply select the standard note and vintrace will include the procedure’s details in the work order.

Examples of standard notes that you might want to add include:

• Barrel transfer
• Barrel racking
• Bottling
• Inoculation
• Load tankers
• Pad filter
• Barrel down
• Addition - yeast build up

Setting Up Product Treatments

Product treatments are actions that you perform on a wine that don’t change the wine, but that you want to track. Examples include:

• Cross flow, or DE filtration
• Drain and return
• Heating the tank
• Restarting
• Stirring barrels

When a product treatment is included in a work order, it can change the product state. Any procedures included with the product treatment will be included in the work order.

If you’re using vintrace for costing, you can include the cost for performing the treatment.

Setting Up Barrel Treatments

Barrel treatments are actions you perform on barrels. For example, you could create a Move Barrels barrel treatment for when you move barrels to a new location.

You can use barrel treatments so that they change the barrel’s sanitation state.

Barrel treatments can also be used to change whether a barrel is active. For example, you could create a Sold Barrels barrel treatment that deactivates the barrels and prints a bill of lading.

Customizing Auto Codes for Wine Lots/Batches

Auto codes are automatic naming templates within vintrace that allow entities such as wine batches, weighbridge bookings, and barrels to be named based on arbitrary properties. For example, a wine batch could could consist of the vintage, region, variety, and a unique number (e.g., 2019MVLSHZ01).

Refer to our Using Auto-Codes article to learn more.

Adding Saved Searches to the Dashboard

You can create and save searches that enable you to quickly apply filters. For example, you could create a search that displays wines in a particular product state (e.g., inoculated wines), or ferment state (e.g., fermenting, unfermented).

After you’ve saved a search, you can pin it to your Dashboard by clicking the  Heart.

This changes the icon to  which indicates that it’s been pinned to your Dashboard where you can quickly see how many wines meet the filter. You can view those wines by clicking the name of the search in the Dashboard.

End-of-Day Procedure During Harvest

We encourage you to run the following reports at the end of each day during harvest:

• Grape Delivery Report
• Crush/Extraction Report

These reports provide a detailed list of all deliveries and all extraction rates from which you can check the validity of data entered by the weighbridge and crush/press operator. Specifically, you can check for:

• Accurate delivery weights
• Accurate extraction rates
• Uncrushed parcels

To access these reports:

1. Click Reports in the sidebar.
2. Click Vintage/Harvest.

Click Email to generate and email the report to one or more recipients.