With the possible exception of kissing, few human pleasures seem more immune to digital enhancement than the creation and enjoyment of wine. For centuries, human eyes have selected overripe grapes for sauternes.
Human hands turn champagne bottles daily.
That might, indeed, be the outcome of technological changes sweeping through California's wine country, where growers desperately want to do a better job of separating the good grapes from the mediocre, even if that means winemaking has to become a more digital endeavor. Mr. Camera, therefore, is working with Vestra on a geographic information system to take to a whole new level the Excel spreadsheets he had been manually maintaining on soil, irrigation, and other factors. The database, called GIS, works with a Global Positioning System to provide exceptionally accurate pictures of the land. Computers can make more sense of it. It'll be a while before Mr. Camera can use GIS in all Hess's vineyards.