"Using an electric field to accelerate ageing is a feasible way to shorten maturation times and improve the quality of young wine," explains Herve Alexandre, professor of oenology at the University of Burgundy, in France, according to a report by New Scientist. Young wine can upset your stomach, cause hangovers and an arid thirst, besides tasting not good.
Aging de-acidifies wine and, in the presence of tiny amounts of oxygen allowed by cork or oak barrels, it ensures reactions that make it cleaner, softer and enhance the aromas. The concentration of alcohols that cause unpleasant odours and an acid taste is reduced, while that of flavour-boosting esters and the bouquet of fruitiness are increased.
"Not only can it shorten a wine's normal storage time, it can also improve some lower-quality wine," he said. "It works well with other grape varieties such as Merlot and Shiraz also." Five Chinese wine manufacturers have started tests based on this technique.
Traditionalists insist that nothing can replace genuine quality plus long, slow ageing in an oak barrel and years of storage in cool, quiet and dark cellars. But the Chinese secret is the electric field. Pass an undrinkable, young cheap red wine between a set of high-voltage electrodes and it becomes pleasantly quaffable.
There are good commercial reasons why winemakers would love get their hands on a speedier alternative, especially in places like China or India where the industry is young and booming. It would allow them to get their 'matured' wines into shops faster and cut the cost of storage.
The food industry has experimented with electric fields as an alternative to heat-treating since the 1980s, and 10 years ago Xin An Zeng, a chemist at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, decided to try it with Cabernet Sauvignon wine. Early results were promising enough for Zeng and his colleagues to develop a prototype plant in which they could treat wine with fields of different strengths for different periods of time.
The results were striking. With the gentlest treatment, the harsh, astringent wine grew softer. Longer exposure saw some of the hallmarks of ageing emerge- a more mature nose, better balance and greater complexity. The improvements reached their peak only after 3minutes at 600 volts per centimeter: this left the wine well balanced and harmonious, with a nose of an aged wine and no change in the typicity of the wine.
An Auckland University wine scientist Dr. Paul Kilmartin has also been interested in the Chinese study, saying he had been doing some work along the same lines.
In his case they put carbon electrodes and very low electrical charges into barrels of wine for 12 weeks to slowly mature the wine, replicating the oxygenation process already used by winemakers to get their wines ready to market more quickly.
Kilmartin said a lot of maturation and softening processes that normally take months and years could be accelerated. "But winemakers are very worried about putting in large doses of oxygen or something where things change too rapidly."
They could give the impression of an aged wine but could generate aldehydes - chemicals that give wine an "off" flavour. He said the Chinese technique could improve aspects of a wine that made it difficult to drink otherwise but it might not work for all wines.
Not everyone is sold on this process, however. Alan Rimmer of Stonecroft Winery in Hawke's Bay was skeptical of the Chinese research according to a report, saying electrical devices that claimed to speed up the ageing process had been around for some time and had never really taken off.
The technique if commercialized may not be as magical as the biblical turning of water into wine but could be a boon for several wineries in India - especially if it can eliminate the off- putting odours of many of our red wines. |