Fast Track to Fine Wine?

wombatmobile writes "Hiroshi Tanaka, president of Innovative Design and Technology, claims to have perfected a machine that can transform a bottle of just-fermented Beaujolais Nouveau into a fine, mellow wine in seconds. From the article: 'The road, however, won't be an easy one: the company has brought the machine around to Japanese wine producers, restaurants and even sake rice wine and "shochu" sweet potato spirit distillers, but so far only a small shochu maker in southern Japan has agreed to get involved.'

Comments

God help them

[TubeSteak]

Wine snobs have their noses so far up in the air, I don't understand why they don't get nosebleeds.

My guess: This is going to turn into the same type of fight with 'natural' diamonds vs 'artificial' diamonds.

However, I give the win to Hiroshi Tanaka & Company.

Unlike the diamond industry, nobody can effectively lock you out of the alcohol business.

Re:Smells like the same old snake oil...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Even if it works it won't catch on. Wine is like exotic stereo equipment: people are paying for expensiveness.

If there's a positive effect, then the reason is something other than what they're claiming. The article gives two irreconcilable explanations for what the machine is doing. one of which is wrong and one of which is nonsensical.

Total snake oil

[Trotsky820]

The article babbles on about breaking up the "water clusters" and letting alcohol more fully mix with the the water to make the wine age more quickly. In fact, wine ages by a number of complex reactions both in cask storage, and later in the bottle. In particular, fine red wines age in the bottle through a series of reactions, many involving the breakdown of various tannic molecules. Also, really fine wines age over years, cheaper wines designed to be drunk early just get worse after time. If you take a five liter jug of crap wine and store it in a cellar for ten years, it just tastes like crap. I saw a lot of comments here about the snob value of wine, and how that will hold this process back. Actually the wine industry is pretty open to new technology in all but the most hidebound, traditional regions. The reason you will never here about this process again, is because it won't do anything, not because "the industry" will quash it.

Important effects overlooked

[TeknoHog]

FTA:

In the natural maturation process, the taste of wine is enhanced by the mixture of alcohol with water molecule clusters, Tanaka says.

Though the exact mechanism of water molecule clusters remain a matter of scientific debate, Tanaka claims the electrolysis treatment instantaneously breaks up water clusters in the wine, allowing the water to more thoroughly blend with the alcohol.

AFAIK, there's a lot more than this to wine maturation. One important effect is esterification of carboxylic acids and alcohols, which produces entirely new aromas. In lab conditions it is possible to esterify substances in a few minutes using strong catalysts such as sulphuric acid and high temperatures, but it takes months or years in a wine cellar.

Besides, as others have mentioned already, it's silly to try and mature Beaujolais Noveau, as it's meant to be enjoyed straight away after production.