Speeding up Wine Ageing
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| Hiroshi Tanaka, president of Innovative Design and Technology Inc., electrolyzes a bottle of 2005 Beaujolais Nouveau at his laboratory in Hamamatsu, Japan. | |
In the age of everything faster and extreme, the president of Japanese startup Innovative Design and Technology Inc., Hiroshi Tanaka, claims to have build a machine that can transform a bottle of just-fermented Vino Novello into a fine, mature wine in just seconds by zapping it with a few volts of electricity.
"We can now electrolyze young wine and ship bottles of fine wine out in no time at all," said Tanaka, who heads a small laboratory in Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo. "Think of the savings we'll realize. Shorter production time, no need for storage, no need to invest in barrels."
We are, along with all wine connoisseurs with whom we shared the news, very skeptical of the whole idea of immediate aging. However, Tanaka is not alone in experimenting with instant wine ageing. He sustains that the method used by his lab is the most advanced and the key part of the machinery that accomplishes the process has been patented.
Tanaka said that Innovative Design and Technology Inc. is in talks with California and Washington state wineries to provide young wine to treat and sell to its US affiliate, BW2 Holdings. BW2 plans to sell such wines on the Internet later this year at US$5 (check out up-to-date value in other currencies.)
So far however, not many producers are willing to take the plunge. Tanaka and his company have contacted various Japanese wine producers, 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.
As expected, in Europe the idea of electrolyzed wine makes producers, experts and wine consumers alike cringe. In the Old World vitiniculture is part of civilization itself.
Tanaka declared that during the natural wine maturation process the taste is enhanced by the mixture of alcohol with water molecule clusters. He claimed that the electrolysis treatment breaks up water clusters in the wine, allowing the water to blend instantaneously and thoroughly with the alcohol.
According to Akihiro Hishima, a member of Innovative Design and Technology Inc. development team, in addition to shortcut production time, electrolyzed wine is healthier than that aged in the traditional way, because it doesn't oxidize easily and requires no artificial anti-oxidizing agents.
As wine consumption in the US is on the rise, having passed beer consumption for the first time ever in 2005, the company's approach to the US market appears to be the smart choice. According to a study by the British-based International Wine and Spirits Record, the US will become the world's top consumer of wine as early as 2008. If we add to this the widespread relative lack of wine education in the United States, the lower price may win over part of the less knowledgeable consumers.
"I know we'll face a lot of resistance from within the wine industry – we already have," said Tanaka recollecting when, in 2002 the company took a prototype of the machine to an Italian wine producer whom he declined to name. "We were told to leave the room, leave the country and never come back."
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