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 San Francisco-based Mardonn Chua and Alec Lee came up with the idea of making an inexpensive grape-free wine while visiting a winery in Napa Valley last year when they saw a bottle of award-winning Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, which is famous for being the first Californian Chardonnay to beat the French counterparts in what is now known as the Judgment of Paris 1976.
The duo identified important flavour compounds found in the grapes of champagne-Chardonnay and Pinot Noir using gas chromatography, mass spectrometry and other hi tech equipment. They then experimented with a mixture of these compounds and worked with a sommelier to come up with the final product they cannot legally call wine but which supposedly looks and tastes like wine which must be made by fermentation of grapes although fruit wine made from different fruits is also sometimes categorized as wine, in a broader sense.
The synthetic wines are around 85 per cent water, 12-13% ethanol to give the buzz that natural alcohol gives after grape juice fermentation by adding yeast to the fruit. The balance is made up of flavour compounds, glycerine and sugar to give the texture and tannins for adding colour.
Chua and Lee founded a start-up firm and ironically, named it Ava Winery and after experimentation some of which has been recorded in the Blog by Mardonn Chua have now released a Dom Pergnon 1992 look-alike and feel-alike.
According to a report in the New Scientist Chua had begun tinkering, combining ethanol with fruity flavour compounds like ethyl hexanoate, which has a fruity, pineapple-like aroma. The initial concoction was monstrous, he writes in his Blog. But six months later, Chua and Lee believe they have produced an experimental synthetic wine that mimics the taste of the sparkling Italian white wine Moscato d’Asti.
They are now focusing on producing an imitation Dom Pérignon 1992. According to their website, 499 bottles are on sale through pre-ordering at $50 a bottle which is less than 25% of the cost of the Real McCoy that sells for an average of $226+taxes (Source: Wine-Searcher)
As expected, wine connoisseurs are appalled by the idea of synthetic aromas and flavours. But our daily life now sees chemicals present increasingly and if successful it won’t be the first example of a tasty food product to be copied as a chemical substitute. Examples of truffle oil, fresh juice substitute Tang that was introduced for astronauts who went into space and later commercialised for the masses, Vanilla essence, lemonades and other drinks including khas sherbets, artificial sweeteners like aspartame for lower calories, are already present in our daily life in a big way.
The Article is silent on the health benefits of the real wine due to resveratrol-the anti-oxidant that is the darling of several ongoing researches around the world. It also does not talk about the storage and the longevity of the product.
Chua is honest enough to admit this is not the best mimicry yet and he is working on alternatives to get the flavours just right. As a start-up he is perhaps working also on getting venture capital to make it a scalable project. The miracle may become a reality and ‘wine from water’ may find its niche in the world of wine-on price factor alone.
Subhash Arora |