Who is Dr. Richard Smart?

Richard Smart has four degrees (Bachelors, Masters, Ph D and D Sc), and 50 years experience in many vineyards around the world. He is arguably one of the world’s best known viticultural consultants, and he has consulted and taught in over 30 different countries. For this reason he is often called “the flying vine-doctor”.

Richard studied Agricultural Science at Sydney University, graduating in 1966. He began his viticultural science career at Griffith NSW where he undertook some of the world’s first experiments with drip irrigation on vineyards. At Griffith he also began his pioneering studies into the use of sunlight by vineyards, which became the subject of a Masters Degree at Macquarie University, Sydney, under Professor Fred Milthorpe.. Richard had the good fortune to undertake his PhD studies at Cornell University in upstate New York, working with Professor Nelson Shaulis, the recognised modern founding father of vineyard “canopy management”.

Richard returned from Cornell in 1974 to teach at Roseworthy College in South Australia, where at one time he was Senior Research Fellow in charge of a small-scale pilot winery. Richard and his family owned a vineyard at Williamstown in the Barossa Valley. During the period 1982 to 1990, he was Government Viticultural Scientist in New Zealand, helping to provide the viticultural science foundations for the now impressive cool climate wine industry. During this time his research established him as a leader in vineyard canopy management.

Dr Richard Smart began full time consulting with Smart Viticulture, an international vineyard consulting business he founded in 1991. Smart Viticulture has consulted to over 300 clients world wide, in many different countries

Richard Smart has published over 300 articles including theses, books, conference papers and reports. He has written bi-monthly columns in leading Australian and Californian trade journals. His written achievements include the best selling “Sunlight into Wine”, recognized world wide as the reference book for canopy management. He is also the Viticulture Editor for the Oxford Companion to Wine edited by Jancis Robinson MW, published as four separate editions in 1994, 1999, 2006 and 2015 He has also delivered invited addresses to professional societies in the USA, South Africa and Australia.

He has received many awards over his career, including “One of world’s 50 most influential winemakers” in 2004 by the US Wine and Spirits Magazine; 2004 Wine Industry “Personality of the Year” for Innovation, Wine magazine, UK.; among “50 Most Powerful Names in Wine” by Decanter magazine 2005, UK; an inductee to the New Zealand Wine Hall of Fame 2006 and 2012 International Wine Challenge UK Lifetime Achievement Award

Richard’s research interests have included irrigation and water relations, canopy management, canopy microclimate and ecophysiology, trellis system design and vine management to improve wine quality. His consulting covers such diverse interests as matching variety to regional climate and maximizing wine quality by vineyard management.

Since 2010 Dr Smart has become concerned about the world wide occurrence of grapevine trunk diseases, and their potential impacts on vineyard economic viability. He has identified the problem in many countries and wine regions where it was not known to exist, and by attending specialist meetings on the problem has developed protocols to control these diseases in commercial vineyards.He began commercial use of these protocols in 2015.

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