October 11th, 2005
Machine Capable of Aging Wine in Minutes Not Years
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
I go back and forth on this one. As a wine lover, I think to myself, wow, what a great way to enjoy fine wine without going broke. As a skeptic I think, where’s the punchline, as in, “oh and the machine costs a mere $1,500,000.00. Read on and then tell me what you think:
Squirrelled away in his chemical engineering laboratory in rural Shizuoka, Hiroshi Tanaka has spent 15 years developing an electrolysis device that simulates, he claims, the effect of aging in wines. In 15 seconds it transforms the cheapest, youngest plonks into fine old draughts as fruit flavours are enhanced and rough edges are mellowed, he says.
Office Playground - Fun stuff for your desk!The machine works by pumping wine and tap water through a specially designed electrolysis chamber equipped with wafer-thin platinum electrodes. The water and wine are separated by an ion exchange membrane — the key component, for which Mr Tanaka holds the patent. Without diluting the wine, the electrolysis causes a rapid rearrangement of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms around the alcohol molecules, which would normally take place over years if the wine were ageing naturally. The electrolyser converts about 4litres of wine a minute. Source: The Australian
C Green says:
It looks like this assumes the only difference btween great wine and “plonk” is age. I know from making my own wine, that some wines do NOT get better with age. While this may make better tasting wine from any given starting point, I would need to be convinced it will make box wine into a great vintage.
Of course, if it does work, it would be interesting to see how much of the “wine hype” is based on the label, not the taste!
October 12th, 2005 at 4:15 am
David A says:
“Without diluting the wine, the electrolysis causes a rapid rearrangement of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms around the alcohol molecules”
As someone who studied chemistry I can safely say this is BS. That don’t mean the device is a fake, but the explanation is gibberish: Some possible interpretations
1) rearrangement of hydrogen and oxygen within individual alcohol molecules. This doesn’t make sense as there’s only one oxygen in an alcohol (ethanol) molecule, and all the hydrogens are identical anyway.
2) rearrangement of atoms around (as in, between) alcohol molecule. Still makes no sense as you don’t get isolated atoms of hydrogen and oxygen just floating around in a solution. All oxygens are identical chemically and all hydrogens are identical chemically, so just swapping them around makes no difference anyway.
So my translation of the explanation is “this causes some chemical reactions in the wine, but we don’t know exactly what they are (and wouldn’t tell you if we did)”
I guess we’ll find out if it works when he manages to sell it to wineries…
October 13th, 2005 at 1:26 am
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