Development by St Petersburg University students helps to cultivate vineyards in the south of Russia

The Terroir Concept project was presented at the 6th St Petersburg International Labour Forum.

Currently, the geography of the projects supervised by the Terroir Concept team covers Crimea and Krasnodar Krai. The start-up creators have managed to work with famous brands of these regions including Oleg Repin’s and Iaroslav Uzunov’s wineries. Belmas Winery became one of the end-use customers for the service of selecting the seedling stock. These are small farms that grow grapes and make wine.

According to Aleksandr Averianov, Captain of the Terroir Concept team, one of the most interesting projects was related to selecting the types of seedling stock for grapes to expand the winery territory in the Balaklava District in Sevastopol. The University team acted as subcontractors in this project. ‘In Russia, grafted viniculture is widespread. In this case, the grape varieties that yield high quality harvest are grafted with seedling stock resistant to various unfavourable factors like phylloxera or a high amount of carbonates in the soil,’ explained Aleksandr Averianov. ‘The choice of the seedling stock is important when starting a new vineyard, since it determines the entire production chain: choice of the graft type, placement of the lines, and agrochemical methods. All of it ultimately affects the agricultural produce, its uniqueness and competitiveness.’

Aleksandr Averianov pointed out that despite the complexity, the project was very interesting. In the course of the project, the students set a goal to develop a system of selecting grape varieties that can be further used in other sites. The time has shown that the solution was the right one. The customer praised the results of the Terroir Concept team’s activity and almost immediately entrusted the team with a similar project in a different region — Krasnodar Krai. In parallel with the project on selecting the seedling stock, the students of St Petersburg University received an order to: assess the suitability of two land plots in Crimea for wine making; and determine if the climate and soil are favourable for this purpose.

In general, even small vineyards have a big grape variety with the most popular ones being Syra, Saperavi, Cabernet Sauvignon, Aligoté, Riesling. The trend of developing Russian autochthonous varieties including Magarach Ruby, with which we had an opportunity to work in Crimea, is especially satisfying.

Aleksandr Averianov, Captain of the Terroir Concept team

Due to practical experience, students-entrepreneurs realised the importance of keeping the balance between "networking" and "product development". In the case of Terroir Concept, the product is not only a web-service maintained on a daily basis, but also separate projects and consulting services provided by the team. Participation in forums, conferences and business accelerators is of great importance. According to the students, St Petersburg University provides significant support by helping to take part in the accelerator at Innopolis University. Victory in that contest was one of the important steps towards concluding new commercial agreements.

‘We believe that the creation of this small innovative enterprise will take our cooperation with the University to a new level. St Petersburg University will be not only our Alma Mater, but also a co-founder and business partner. Together we will explore and master new directions in wine making and other fields of agriculture,’ said Aleksandr Averianov, Captain of the Terroir Concept team.

A test run of the innovative system to develop wine making will take place in May this year. ‘Since the SPbU Start-up contest, we have studied customer requirements including problematic interviews, which inspired us to pivot from a geoinformational system to the development of a Saas-platform (software as a service — Editor’s note) to design vineyards,’ shared Aleksandr Averianov. ‘We will interact with our customers using this platform. Our customers will be able to see all the key design stages: from exploration to territory planning. All design solutions will be visualised in a clear and accessible form. A system of selecting the varieties of seedling stock, previously used in the projects by the Terroir Concept team, will also be integrated in the web-service.