Villa Sandi, a family-owned winery in Italy’s Veneto region known for its premium Prosecco, is turning its vineyards into a connected, data-driven operation. The producer has built a precision viticulture ecosystem in which sensors, satellite imagery, drones and decision support software work side by side. The goal is to make every decision in the vineyard sharper, from when to irrigate to when to pick the grapes, while cutting back on the resources each task consumes.
The winery describes the project as a way to link its estates through a single digital platform that reads agronomic and climate information as it happens. That platform now connects more than 200 hectares of vineyards across the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. Launched more than two years ago, the effort sits inside a wider sustainability plan that has also earned all of Villa Sandi’s vineyards Biodiversity Friend certification, a recognition given to farming methods that protect local ecosystems and natural resources.
How Precision Viticulture Ties the Vineyards Together
The system pulls in readings from several layers of hardware. Weather stations track temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind, while electronic leaf sensors measure how wet the foliage is. Soil sensors read moisture down to roughly 70 centimeters below the surface. On top of that ground-level network sit drones and satellite imagery, which check the vigor of the vines plot by plot and can flag differences within just a few meters. The producer, whose wines reach more than 130 markets through the Villa Sandi estate, says the tools together surface early signs of vine stress and point to the best moment for harvest.
Artificial intelligence turns that flood of numbers into advice agronomists can act on. Rather than replacing the people who work the land, the tools are meant to sharpen their judgment. Much like the aerial crop intelligence approaches seen elsewhere in precision agriculture, the value comes from spotting problems early and treating only the areas that need attention. Agronomists at Villa Sandi now have live visibility into climate conditions, soil moisture, plant behavior and the variability that runs across a single vineyard, which lets them plan more accurately and step in only where it matters.
“Technology does not replace human expertise — it makes it more informed,” Leonardo Moretti Polegato, Vice President of Villa Sandi
According to the winery, the role of its agronomists has shifted from gathering information to interpreting it and applying field experience. That change matters because the climate around these vineyards is growing less predictable. Rising temperatures, erratic weather and mounting pressure on water supplies have brought more frequent heat stress, uneven rainfall and periods of scarcity. Constant monitoring lets the team fine-tune irrigation and plant protection before trouble takes hold, instead of scrambling to react once damage has already appeared.
What the Drone and AI Data Delivers in the Field
The winery reports that the payoff is already showing up in its numbers. It estimates it has trimmed plant protection treatments by as much as 20 percent and lowered water use by roughly 10 percent on average through smarter irrigation. The gains climb higher in plots where this style of management is paired with soil composition studies and the “M” series rootstocks developed alongside the University of Milan’s Wine Research Team. In those vineyards, water savings can reach up to 70 percent compared with neighboring plots, a meaningful buffer against the water stress that keeps returning to the region.
Villa Sandi frames the work as one stage in a longer effort rather than a finished product. The system is designed to grow as new technologies and skills come along, guided by the daily back-and-forth among agronomists, winemakers and technical staff. The winery says its aim is to understand each vineyard more deeply, keep its natural balance intact and bring in high-quality grapes season after season. Leonardo Moretti Polegato expects the influence of AI on that mission to deepen over the coming decades.
“Over the next 10 to 20 years, I believe AI will have its greatest impact in helping us understand vineyards more deeply and make increasingly precise decisions,” Leonardo Moretti Polegato, Vice President of Villa Sandi
Villa Sandi is based in a 17th-century Palladian villa and has been owned by the Moretti Polegato family since 1975, growing into a well-known producer of Prosecco. The winery points to the United States as a leading export destination, where appetite for authentic, high-quality Prosecco keeps rising. By pairing that reputation with a vineyard that now reads and responds to its own conditions, the producer is betting that data and human knowledge together will keep its grapes consistent as the climate keeps shifting.
