By Adam Hollingworth
It is the holy grail of wine-making – finding an instant way to age a new vintage.
Boffins at Waikato University reckon they have stumbled on a recipe using electrical fields.
But, does it work?
Jonathan Scott was a sceptic – the electrical engineer set out this summer to disprove reports from China of success in artificially ageing wine.
“You know it sounded like all those nineteenth century experiments when they wanted to cure all known diseases with electricity which is too good to be true,” says Mr Scott.
“So we set up to just do a very small scale replica. We were astounded because it had a tremendous effect, enormous impact on the wine. We were just sitting there going, ‘Oh my god it works!’”
The idea is simple.
“We're just exposing it to large electric fields that are alternating quickly,” says Mr Scott.
“So it's kind of accelerating the chemical reactions that you think would happen in the wine. By themselves you left them on the shelves for a couple of years, but you're shaking the molecules up so it happens in a couple of minutes.”
Professor Scott wants a vineyard to reproduce the experiment on an industrial scale.
“Wine is big business and there's a big market out there for new and different tastes, so anyone who can make a wine more drinkable is potentially sitting on a grape gold mine.”
So; snake oil or cure-all?
3 News approached the Grill Magazine’s wine critic Keith Stewart for a taste test.
“So it's got the energy of a freshly opened bottle so it tastes like it's freshly opened, but it's got some really mature characters in there, it's kind of strange it's a very unusual glass of wine,” says Mr Stewart.
Mr Stewart's verdict: there is commercial potential.
“Yeah, yeah it's changing the flavour,” he says.
“It's giving you some characteristics in there that make wine more drinkable. Earlier, that's all I can say. So you might be able to sell something that might have been a bit dodgy before the process, that would be easily sold after you'd put it through the process.”
Mr Scott is glad to hear Mr Stewart’s verdict.
“I guess I'm gratified to hear that, we're not fools. I love to hear him say that the scepticism wasn't necessary. I'd love to see it go somewhere; this has just been an investigative project for the summer, some, I guess, a little technical fun, but I'd love to see it go somewhere.”
Whether it goes now will be down to a brave winemaker.
3 News