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

Into a fine, mellow wine in seconds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only problem is that drinkers must be accelerated to relativistic speeds to be effective. Innovative Design and Technology is currently looking for funding to clear this final, minor hurtle to the process.

no more Barrels

[TubeSteak]

heh, I just RTFA and this part made me laugh

"Think of the savings we'll make. Shorter production time, no need for storage, no need to invest in barrels," he said.

Recently, in England, they cut down a 340 yr old oak tree to make wine barrels.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2000 913,00.html

Part of the cachet of drinking fine wines is that it is expensive and exclusive. Once you start allowing the hoi polloi to have access, it no longer becomes so special.

To make an example you'll all understand, think G-Mail invites. Specifically, when they first started getting passed around.

Beaujolais Nouveau is SUPPOSED to be drank fresh

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Beaujolais Nouveau is SUPPOSED to be drank right after a short fermentation process. It tastes like CRAP if it's allowed to age more than 6 months.

In france they have festivals mid-november, when the year's Beaujolais Nouveau's are officially allowed to be drank.

now...

[arghblubber]

... i was wondering for a second what tha kazaa guys had against that emulator thingy

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.

Re:God help them

[mfago]

If they ever come up with a way to turn fine British beer into Budwiser I'll let you know.

It's quite simple: drink the British, and piss into a Bud bottle.

Re:God help them

[hunterx11]

Artificial, natural, they're both the same physically. But the difference is human and intangible.

With a DeBeers diamond, an African child may well have died a result of its production. That's the human touch, and that's why people should be more impressed by a genuine natural diamond.