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Wine Tasting Via Computer
smooth wombat writes "What makes a good wine? Why do some wines have a smooth, almond-like bouquet while others have a sharper, more acidic bite to them? These questions and more have usually been answered by oenologists who can list the subtle nuances of a particular wine and tell you if it's good or not. However, vinters don't have the luxury of waiting until a wine is ready to be drunk to know if they have produced a good, drinkable product. Lorenz "Larry" Biegler, who teaches chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, in conjunction with industry scientists in Chile, is working on mathematical formulas to automate the fermentation process, adjusting ingredients and conditions to ensure robust flavors and higher yields from grape harvests. The researchers have been collaborating for more than two years and are studying only white wines, since reds are more complex and contain solids that make them difficult to analyze."
Victory Wine anyone? I don't see any wine enthusiasts buying into this.
Wine tasting, as I'm sure most experts will agree, is as much of an art as anything; I doubt that people will allow a computer to tell them if a wine is "good" or not, even if it's right most of the time.
OTOH, if the computer only tells people if the wine is drinkable, or ready to be tasted, that's a different story. As long as the computer doesn't try to encroach on the "art" side of wine tasting and stays firmly on the "science" side, I think that it could be quite a useful invention - although to a tiny demographic.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
For the record, the word is vintner, not vinter.
In Soviet Russia, vinters are wery, wery cold.
http://www.distillery-yeast.com/turbo_yeast_functi on.htm
Yea for turbo yeasts.
I'm still waiting for yeasts that convert both sucrose/glucose & xylose to be available to your average consumer.
Wine yeasts give 14%~18% alcohol content.
Distillers yeast gives up to 21%
xylose converting yeast can up the yield significantly
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
... a non-porn reason to lick my screen!
some wines have a smooth, almond-like bouquet
No they dont. Nor do they taste like chocolate, raspberries or broccoli.
Really wine has 5 basic flavorings: 1) rotten grape 2) alcohol 3) wooden barrel 4) cork 5) mold
Old news. I've been able to debug my WINE install for ages now.
And what's this talk about "grapes" and "yeast", are they new distros?
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Being under the influence of a goodly sum of wine as I type this, I can surely tell you no computer could possibly tell good wine from Mad Dog 20/20.
... (hic...)
Good wine ~ good art. I can't define it, but I know it when I drink it.
Oh, and God Bless Oregon.
w00t!
There's a lot of money in this. Not surprisingly, a former vintner decided to make this into a company. In the past they have accurately ranked wine involved in taste comparisons by experts. Unexpectedly, they use a one dimensional scale which works, suggesting the wine judges use a one dimensional scale too.
The exact formula is a mystery/trade secret. But it is no secret that Enologix tests many of the top wines at various points in production, and they AVERAGE a 5-6 point rating increase for the first year they are contracted by their clients.
I've been to their web site before when it was useful and worked...right now they appear to be hosed.
Just finished fermenting 15 gallons of Chardonnay in glass. I'm about to rack it again to clear it and start the 'experimentation' phase- precisely how much oak is needed to make this a good wine.
p hp3 that is rather interesting- but all in good time.
;)
The oak selection seems to be pretty dominated by Nevers, but I wish I could find out how to buy some. There's a paper out at
http://www.wynboer.co.za/recentarticles/0400wood.
Right now, for me personally (and I'm about to start 15 more gallons of Chardonnay and 5 gallons of Pinot Grigio) I'm going for a very light oak flavour for 5 gallons- destined for Champagne- and a heavier oak that'll sit in the bottles to be served at house dinners.
All in all- I'll take ANY computer modeling that can help me predict what my quality will be... I just doubt it'll work unless I start investing in alot more equipment
Where's the fun in that?
H.
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
This might work well for jug wines that no one really drinks for the taste in the first place, but even cheap table wine has subtle (or not-so-subtle) nuances that might be erased by this process.
Wine Is Not Ethanol... Oh comeon. Someone had to do it.
...when the first thought is "How else are you going to test wine?"
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This has already happened in the hard liquor industry. They try to keep a low profile, but Frank-Lin Distillers makes over 1000 different brands of liquor sold on the West Coast. They use only about 100 different formulas, though. It's all about branding. They're located near the railroad yards in San Jose, where the tank cars of industrial alcohol arrive from the Midwest on their two private railroad spurs. They run tap water through an in-house deionizing and purification plant, mix it with the alcohol, add flavoring, and bottle.
Here's a nice article about the automated palletizing system at their plant, including the three-conveyor bridge over the railroad tracks. You'll recognize the brand names on the product.
Some quotes". ... During the same shift and on the same bottling line, high-end 750-mL recyclable glass bottles of Tequila may be followed by 1.5-L recyclable polyethylene terephthalate bottles of Caribbean Rum, without a glitch."
"With an impressive assortment of distilled liquor tanks and eight automated bottling lines, Frank-Lin's San Jose, CA, plant produces more than five million cases of liquor products a year.
Once wine is figured out, the vintners are going to face competition from industrial producers like that. The vintners will fight, make noises about tradition and appelation, but in the end, the industrial scale stuff will win out. Because, most of the time, it will be better.
I fear my reaction -- "Of course they could only analyze white wines." makes me a snob.
Not that I drink much wine anyway. That there is the crazy sauce.
COMPUTER! Whatever happened to Blueberry Muffin?
Wine Is Not an Emultar .. oh, wait a sec...
LCD (lowest common denominator) wine.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Personally, my drink of choice is Crown and diet, but since I worked as a bartender for a wine bar for 2 years, I have a passing knowledge of wine. So here's my take. The statement "These questions and more have usually been answered by oenologists who can list the subtle nuances of a particular wine and tell you if it's good or not." is misleading. It doesn't matter what "oenologists" say about a wine. If you want to find a "good" wine, try out several different ones and decide which one YOU like. Then find the least expensive wine you can find that suits your taste. My 2 personal favorites are the 1999 Katheryn Kennedy Lateral, and (cant remember the year) J. Bookwalter Merlot. However, right now I'm drinking a 2003 Rosemont Estate Shiraz, because it is quite similar to those 2, but it is $9 at the local grocery. And lastly, the most important thing. After you learn enough to bullshit your way through a wine conversation (the last 2 sentances made me sound like I know what I'm talking about, huh?), you can talk about it and enjoy it while not appearing to be a drunk. Because wine FUCKS YOU UP :)
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Squirrel