More Holes Than Swiss Cheese  (4 October)

 

If it looks like manure and smells like manure, the chances are it’s not perfume.

 

The phrase “tabloid press” originated in the UK and for good reason. Their newspapers are the world best at sensationalism, man bights shark, and who is sleeping with who stories. The accuracy of the claims contained in the story doesn’t matter as long as the paper sells. In other words, they don’t care about responsible journalism; they are just after circulation. Wise readers are sceptical when reading articles in this press segment. Unfortunately not all people are wise, and if it’s in print, they believe it. Pity!

 

In an ironic twist, when I read this story in the UK Telegraph, I noticed on the right hand side of the screen, a segment titled, “Weird Stuff Videos.” They should have made a video of their story and included it under that heading instead!  

 

In the past, there have been many claims made about artificial ways to age wine in seconds or minutes. Methods have included a number of magnetic devices etc. The problem is that not one of them has actually worked!  It’s a bit like looking for the fountain of youth. The bod that finds it will be worth a squillion ‘Oxford scholars’ – and anyone who came up with a real device that could age wine, in seconds or minutes, would be in the same boat as the person who discovers the fountain of youth. Rich.

 

The latest claims come from Casey Jones. He says his £350 dooverlackie uses ultrasound technology to recreate the effects of decades of ageing by colliding alcohol molecules inside the bottle.  (I wonder driving steam trains all these years has addled his brain? Those who are my vintage will know what I am talking about.)

 

According to the Telegraph article, “The Ultrasonic Wine Ager, which looks like an ordinary ice bucket, takes 30 minutes to work and has already been given the thumbs up by an English winemaker.”

 

Wow! What credibility and what an incredible recommendation. A whopping one winemaker thinks it works, and an English one at that! Now that is real scientific proof of the claims made. Not!

 

Jones went onto state, "This machine can take your run-of-the-mill £3.99 bottle of plonk and turn it into a finest bottle of vintage tasting like it costs hundreds.”

 

Vintage what? Like Mr Jones, I have had wine that is so badly corked or oxidised that it tasted like a bottle of £3.99 bottle of vintage plonk, when it actually cost hundreds.

 

Jones then says, “It works on any alcohol that tastes better aged, even a bottle of paintstripper whisky can taste like an 8-year-aged single malt.”

 

There is only one slight hole in the logic behind that claim. It’s so small you could drive a B-double (double length semi for you Yanks) through it, but what does that matter? Why let the facts get in the way? Fact: whisky does get better with age, but only when it’s in barrel. Once it goes into bottle, its ability to improve ceases. As an aside, paint stripper and eight year old single malts have a lot in common. By ten or twelve years of age, they start to lose that character and turn into something drinkable.

 

I love the following claim made by Jones. "The look and bouquet of the drink is improved and because of the chemical changes, the alcohol is easier to absorb by the kidneys and therefore, hangovers are virtually eliminated.”

 

How the hell is the “look of the wine improved?” That makes no sense. It’s also about as relevant as a hair comb to a bald bastard like my mate Brian. As far as the alcohol being easier to absorb by the kidneys, scientifically I have it on good authority from a world class pharmacological expert, Professor Graham Starmer PhD, who speciality is (drugs and) alcohol that the claim is pure rubbish.

 

Starmer told me, “Jones doesn’t know his science. Alcohol is not absorbed by the kidneys. A small amount of the alcohol is absorbed from the stomach. The rest of the alcohol is a passes into the duodenum.. The amount of time that it takes to empty into the duodenum, where most of it is absorbed almost instantly, depends on the amount of food in the stomach.  Once absorbed into the blood (hence blood alcohol level), Most of the alcohol is metabolised by the liver. And finally the remainder is removed from the blood by the kidneys and  excreted in the urine.

 

I can’t see how ultrasound could change the physical attributes of the alcohol. There may possibly be some sensory changes to the wine, but the only way to test that, is in double blind trials.”

 

As far as Jones claim "that hangovers are virtually eliminated" is concerned, if you believe his device can do that, I would like to talk to you about the possibility of buying The Sydney Opera House. Hangovers are caused by poor sleep, dehydration and other components in the drink, like esters and what scientists term "higher alcohols." The higher alcohols are more complex than ethyl alcohol. The device would have to significantly alter, or better still remove these "higher alcohols," esters etc, and according to Starmer, that's unlikely to happen with the use of ultrasound waves.   

 

Jones then goes onto say, "Wine is at it's best five or so years after it's made, so this could help homebrewers taste aged wine more easily." If the target market is homebrewers, then enough said!

 

 

Feel free to submit your comments!

From Chris Robinson: Friday 10 October

Ric, you must have been having a bad day. I read the article and like you thought it was all a lot of codswallop, but I think it stands to be tested.

Winemakers are really negative about any rubbish like this but yes one winemaker tried it and was amazed. So just why are you so down on it ,with pretty scathing rejection without offering any refuting of the science, which is surely the issue. The real issue is does the claims for the technology have any effect? The description on how it works actually sound logical to me.

Your attack on the role of the kidneys may have been out of context, as this was not a statement made by the inventor, but a sub-text by the article's author.

 

TORB Responds: Friday 10 October

Chris, I was not having a bad at all. The claim about the kidneys was in actual fact made by the inventor. It is a direct quote and in quotation marks. It was not a statement made by Nick Britten, the author of the article. Casey Jones (the author) also made fallacious and impossible claims about the effect his device would have on Whisky.

 

If the device was as good as he states it is, logic dictates he would have submitted it to a number of journalists so that they could carry out blind tastings using the device to judge for themselves. Those endorsements would be worth their weight in gold if they were positive. If you are going to go to all the trouble of producing a device that costs A$800+ and you are confident that it really works, you would be shoving it under every professionals nose you could find. Hell, you could send it to them for free as a sample, knowing that they would rave about it in their write ups, ensuring you made a bloody fortune. 

 

The lack of any real testing and his bogus claims is what leads me to believe this device is pure quackery. Oh, and according to Professor Starmer, who understands science, he can't see how it could do what the inventor claims.  

 

From Murray Paterson: Sunday 19 October

 

So, this device “collides the molecules of alcohol” … which must be a little disturbing to all prospective parents when an ultra-sound scan is used on many pregnant women these days.

What does it do to the water molecules – a much larger proportion of wine? Ageing is a process of controlled oxidation for the most part, the release of dissolved oxygen and the tannin structure; the alcohol content of bottled wine varies little with time. So by working on the alcohol portion it is difficult to imagine where the benefit would be.
 

 

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2008