Three ways to run a smarter vineyard (and make better wine)

There aren't many vineyards near SmartPlanet's New York headquarters, but at our San Francisco office, well...let's just say there's plenty of wine to go around.

Our intrepid video team has trekked all over the Napa Valley in search of a smarter way to grow grapes and produce better-tasting wine. What they've found is that California growers are at the forefront of applying laboratory science to the winery.

In our latest video, we interview Andrew Sutherland, a researcher with the University of California Davis Plant Pathology Department, who trains honey bees to detect plant disease in agricultural crops:

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In another, we travel to Frog's Leap Winery -- one of first wineries in the U.S to be sustainable -- and talk with general manager Jonah Beer about how going green really affects the winery's bottom line:

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We also met Bob Shaffer, an agronomist who consults for Napa and Sonoma county vineyards, who showed us how he uses scientific soil analysis to determine nutrient deficiencies, allowing him to return it to balance for good growing:

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Better wine, smarter agriculture. (If only I had the nose to know the difference.)

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com