Could Scientists Cook Up 'Instant' Vintage Wine?

Meek Doctor Jeckyll could swallow a magic elixir and turn into Mr. Hyde. Cartoon hero Underdog popped a pill to gain his superpowers. But what if a mild mannered wine could instantly yell "Shazam" and morph into "Superwine" ? According to the blogosphere, it's possible. The rumor has been circulating around the Internet for weeks. But unfortunately, the story had all the feelings of a con, urban legend or hoax:

Here's a typical posting, this one by The Pitch of Kansas City. Under the headline, "Coming Soon: Vintage Wine Over Night," Owen Morris wrote:

"Scientists have stumbled across a way to make the cheapest of cheap wine taste like a vintage pinot grown in the heart of Burgundy."

"It's an outlandish claim and people have been hawking various gizmos that promise to do the same thing for years, but this time it's respected scientists who have figured out a method that works -- and to prove it, they fooled wine-experts."

"Xin An Zeng of South China University was experimenting with electrical fields' effect on food when he decided to try it with wine. The electrical field acts as a catalyst in turning various acids into esters. Esters are the pungent compound that give aged wine that unique mouth feel and taste. As a wine matures, it gains more esters and becomes less acidic, but it takes years for oxygen to turn the acids into esters."

"Zeng found that by using electrical fields he could speed the acids-into-esters process into minutes. He presented his work to Hervé Alexandre, a professor of oenology at the University of Burgundy who was impressed, delcaring it a "feasible way" to shorten maturity. As strong of a vote of confidence as you're going to get from a French wine professor."

"Zeng published his work in volume nine of Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, a scholary journal that, in the same volume, included such breezy articles as "Comparison of hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressure to inactivate foodborne viruses."

You can read the rest of the article here.

To the authors credit, he doesn't swallow the claim wholesale.

Here's our line of thinking. We've had electricity since the 18th century, tons of scientists, research labs, both public and private, as well as the ultra competitive multi-billion dollar food and wine industries. Add into that the extreme nationalism that surrounds wine regions the world over --and with all these factors, no one ever thought to generate an electrical field around wine? All those researchers and tinkerers never hit upon this fairly obvious idea? It strains credulity. Either that, or Zeng's a genius.

So are the media and bloggers being suckered? Is this a "cold fusion" or "perpetual motion machine" kind of claim? Only time will tell. Until then, we are extremely skeptical. Don't look for your $10 box wine to turn into Château Lafite any time soon.

Bottled Palate Cleanser Under Development

The song talks about putting time in a bottle, but two Cal Poly students had another idea, to develop a palate cleanser in a bottle, to be consumed between wine tastings. Under the headline, "Wine Notes: Cal Poly Alums Create 'Palate Cleansing Beverage' Aimed at Winemakers," San Luis Obsipo Tribune Reporter Janis Switzer writes:

"Five months after receiving their diplomas, most college graduates are looking for a job, looking for a place to live, and just generally looking for a direction in life."

"Not so with Andrew Macaluso and Nicole Chamberlain, who are traveling California test marketing and selling the innovative new product they developed while working toward their degrees in enology and viticulture in Cal Poly’s wine and viticulture program."

"The product they created is SanTásti, a “palate cleansing beverage” that they hope will help winemakers evaluate their wines more accurately, as well as help tasting rooms better represent their wines to often overwhelmed consumers."

"The concept is simple, but there is no other comparable product on the market right now, and Macaluso and Chamberlain have already filed for a patent."

"They’ve already started the framework for a company they plan to expand into other innovative products."

"Neither of the partners initially started in the Cal Poly wine program. Macaluso was a chemistry major and Chamberlain a biology major."

'They met during their first year in chemistry class, but two years later they decided that the lab was not for them."

"They changed majors in their junior year, and found themselves analyzing the effect of enzymes and bacteria on wine quality."

“One thing that we just decided to look at out of the blue was the quality that was assigned to the wine based on the order the wine was tested,” Macaluso explains."

"It was then that the couple saw a pattern that indicated palate fatigue played an important role on how a person evaluates wine quality."

“It was things like that that really piqued our interest,” Macaluso says."

"So one night watching television at home, they decided to try to come up with a “palate cleanser.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

What the New Year Holds for Colorado Wine

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has a few wise words for the New Year: "As for resolutions, Colorado has 72 or so wineries. How many of them one, can you name, and two, have you visited? Make a decision to see more of Colorado Wine Country in 2009, and get to know the winemakers."

Excellent advice. As the Colorado Wine Industry comes of age, there are more and more vintages worth trying. We have a resolution of our own for the industry:

That out-of-state reporters, after saying "Colorado Wine Country," will stop using the phrase, "Yes, Colorado." We've seen this used a couple of times in news articles. It's breathless, disingenuous and condescending all at the same time. There's wine in all 50 states, now, as Time Magazine recently pointed out -- so don't act shocked when there's decent wine to be had on something other than the coasts.

But we digress. The Sentinel went on to evaluate global wine sales for 2009. It corroborates other stories we've seen. High end wine isn't moving as fast as the cheaper stuff. The Sentinel writes:

"[We're not in] another capital-D depression seemed to be the general assumption, although there was obviously a wide-trending desire to hold the line on spending. That, of course, lends itself to the wine market, and a recent report on Wine Business News said savvy customers are looking farther and farther down the list of wines."

"Among its reports, Wine Business cited a story in the Los Angeles Times that said, “Sales of wine for $9 or less make up the fastest-growing segment of the wine market, while sales above that price are starting to trend down,” quoting Jon Fredrikson, a Woodside, Calif., industry analyst."

"This reflects what some local retailers have said, that bottle sales are up although revenue is down. Which means it takes several $6 wines to have the same income effect as one $20 bottle."

"That same story linked to an e-mail from Danny Brager, who tracks the wine industry in the United States for the marketing information source Nielsen Co., that said the wine industry’s “15-year bull run seems to have stumbled a bit.”

“The stumble is that while it’s growing, it’s not growing as fast as it was last year,” Brager said."

"And another story compared recent consumer trends to the dark moods following 9–11."

“We’re in a 9–11 mode, where people are hunkering down a little,” said David Freed, chairman of the Napa-based UCC Group, whose investments include hundreds of acres of vineyards in the Central Coast and North Coast."

"It’s not that people aren’t buying wines; it’s just they are buying lower-priced wines. Sales of so-called premium wines, the ones that once were in the $15–$20 range, have fallen steadily until now it’s the $5.99 to $9.99 wines that are making up the bulk of the sales."

"And many retailers are saying wines priced above $25 are moving sluggishly, if at all."

Many full bodied Colorado wines are priced within this range, so drink local this year. And visit those winemakers!

You can read the rest of the Sentinel article here.