Zerbina – old-school precision viticulture

On my arrival at the Fattoria Zerbina in Romagna, the first thing Cristina Geminiani showed me was a pair of maps of one of her vineyards, the Vigna Amfiteatro. This in itself is not unusual, and perhaps even less so when one realises that Geminiani's husband is the indefatigable Alessandro Masnaghetti, the man who is so busy putting Italy's finest vineyards on the map.

What is surprising is the fact that each single vine is depicted as a coloured dot. On the first map, there are dots in five varying colours of green indicating the 'vegetation details', from deep...