Beware: green chemistry is soon to serve you green wines. And in boxes, too.
Once I read in Chemical and Engineering News a list of the chemicals in either red or white wines. I remember thinking "generic wines" to start with: Let's see the difference in the young and the old wines!
Next was 'Electronic Tongue' Can Tell Old Brandy From New but not about wines. Reminding that white wines are drunk very early in Austria, I still thought someone should look into the ageing chemistry for wines. Meanwhile "Scientist Tom" conducted scientific wine tasting with his scientist friends somewhere in USA. Issues such as bruising were put to scientific taste-testing. His efforts came up the other day about the "boxed" wines, literally in a box instead of a glass bottle, readily requiring scientific taste-testing.
Now Xin An Zeng, a chemist at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou says an optimum of 3 minutes at 600 volts per centimeter to convert a 3-month-old cabernet sauvignon into a fine aged version. When wine is pumped through a pipe between two titanium electrodes, that is. "Not only can it shorten a wine's normal storage time, it can also improve some lower-quality wine," is promotional for commercialization of this research.
Scientist Tom might well be ready for the green wines and for the "boxed" effect as far taste-testing is concerned. All we need is a Henry Ford to truck the green wine products into the consumer's hand. Perhaps in mobile processors like the cement trucks.
And don't worry about the cork or the glass bottle industry. Just think: good wine, possibly, at almost juice prices! You can't easily sweep the green wine move under the cultural carpet. At any price.
