Winemaking isn't exactly high-tech. You take some grapes, add a little sugar and yeast-then let nature take its course. But now National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) researchers are helping bring space-age technology to the ancient art of making wine in a partnership with Robert Mondavi Winery in California's Napa Valley. The scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., are collaborating with Mondavi to explore the use of digital remote sensing data in vineyard operations. The remote sensing data help winegrowers harvest their grapes with more precision-yielding higher quality wine.

There are many different kinds of remote sensing instruments, some of which pick up information invisible to the naked eye. The class of remote sensing instruments known as "multi-spectral imagers" measure radiation in the visible and near-infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. For the Mondavi project, NASA acquired multi-spectral imagery from a digital camera flown on an airplane at 14,000 feet over Napa Valley. The data were then processed to create a special "vegetation index" emphasizing information on the amount of chlorophyll in the plants, which can be used to make estimates of plant health and maturity. "The vegetation index is calculated using relatively narrow spectral bands centered in regions that are perfect for looking at vegetation," says Lee Johnson, senior remote sensing scientist at NASA Ames.