I've seen many wine books warn against cellaring wines in areas that are prone to vibration, often times suggesting that vibration can have the same disastrous effect on wine as rapid changes in temperature. Often times there is a "scientific" explanation of the harmful effects that temperature has on aging wine, but I've never seen the same for vibration. Anyone know the "scientific" explanation of vibration and its harmful effect on wine? All I've seem to come across is: "wine is a living thing and therefore doesn't like vibration". Okay, but I can think of a couple of living things that aren't so turned off by vibration. Any thoughts? Also, has anyone experienced this first hand? Do you have to live under an elevated transit line or besides a construction site before you run into trouble?
This has been brought up from time to time here. Most of us agree that it's probably an overstated concern and not nearly as important as temperature control. As for what's going on, my best guess is that the vibration doesn't allow sediment to settle in red wine which means that you'd get the bitter sediment in your aged red wines. Other than that, I can't really think of any reason that vibration would hurt the wine.
To heck with the scientists - I stand on the shoulders of giants and find that the lay explanations make the most sense.
The chemical reaction involved in the aging of young wines - or maintenance/storage of mature wines - entails a bonding of molecules. Vibration can lead to "shaking those bonds loose".
Extended exposure to very cold temps - ~ 35 degrees - can result in "cold plating" - premature bonding (not he same as getting married in high school) ... vibration over the long haul can separate the desirable, complementary, components of a wine - kinda like a broken Hollandaise sauce.
Kinda like eating 1/2 your salad with a straight oil dressing and the other
1/2 soaked in vinegar .... as opposed to Vinaigrette.
Sorry, but that's just plain wrong. The energy involved in even the weakest covalent bond is too high to be broken by mechanical force. Chemical reactions are often *promoted* by agitation, but that's just to promote mixing.
No, no, and no. Vibration can't separate solutions: that violates the second law of thermodynamics. Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion that can separate into two distinct phases, an entirely different phenomenon.
I will defend your right to disagree to the death. You can't get two doctors or engineers to agree on everything. But this is my business and I am supported by any number of "authorities" - including mechanical engineers and winemakers with a lot more expertise, experience (and interest) than I possess directly in the past 7 years.
Politics, religion and wine .... avoid the subjects in polite company. You'll either end up in a heated argument or boring the hell out of the audience.
How much vibration could you be talking about? Considering what a bottle of wine goes through on the truck ride to the liquor store, unless you live one apartment over from a dance studio...
I couldn't remember my 10th grade chemistry professor's name - he's probably dead or senile by now, anyway.
So I called my resource in the industry. "Covalence" sounds impressive, but refers only to the bonding of specific atoms to create specific molecules. The relationships in aging or storage of wine is significantly more complex.
My reference to "giants' shoulders" may have prematurely rushed you to the old Newton conundrums. Your 2d Law likewise sounds impressive, but try this one on ... and then apply it to the issues at hand. Well, not really issues, but fodder for justifying the internet and the topic.
The energy available in a hot frying pan or in a loud BOOM from a drum immediately and rapidly begins to spread out to their environments. Nothing hinders that from happening. Lots of ordinary and also unhappy events are like that. But there are an enormous number of "energy diffusing" second-law happenings that are hindered so they don't occur right away. Here's a simple illustration: If I hold a half-pound rock in my fingers so it is ready to fall, it has potential energy concentrated in it because it is up above the ground. If the second law is so great and powerful, why doesn't the energy that has been concentrated in the rock spread out? Obviously, it can't do that because my fingers are "bonding" to it, keeping it from falling. The second law isn't violated. That rock tends to fall and diffuse its energy to the air and to the ground as it hits -- and it will do so spontaneously by itself, without any help -- the second I open my fingers and "unbend" the rock.
Drink up. Bye bye. And Buy Bonds (especially if you're in a fantasy baseball league)
no one ever asked if it were a real issue - only what conceivable justification there might be.
you are 100% right - it just doesn't matter under "normal" circumstances". the concept is a self-serving marketing ploy created by the advertising writers.
"vibration free" is like yugo and mercedes claiming there wheels are round. they all are - it's a non-issue.
Look, Mike, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're arguing with a Professor of Chemistry at this moment. I'm not just blowing smoke out of my ass, nor am I trying to pick a fight -- but I'm not going to sit idly by while I read factually incorrect chemistry in posts here, either. The aging of wine is a complex process to be sure. We've had long discussions here about whether oxygen is needed for proper aging, f'rinstance. But a lot *is* known about how tannins mature, and it involves (as do the vast majority of chemical processes) the formation of covalent bonds, specifically the cross-linking of the tannins to form what eventually becomes sediment. As I said in my earlier post, it's just not physically possible for agitation to alter that process in any meaningful way.
My reference to the second law really was an easy way of saying that you would lose huge amounts of entropy if what you proposed (separating the components of wine out) were to happen. The example you cite is a good illustration of the limits of the second law (it refers to the Universe as a whole, a hard thing to keep your eye on) but my point is still a valid one. What you're talking about is the same thing as saying that all the air in a room could rush to the ceiling and you'd suffocate to death in a vacuum six feet below -- it's theoretically possible, but easy to dismiss as being so entropically disfavored as to never occur. Put another way: it's easy to mix things, but unmixing them generally requires a lot of energy.
Anyway, this doesn't have much to do with wine by now, so I'll shut up now and find a wine to talk about...
le/on Wed, 05 Oct 2005 03:52:26 GMT, tu disais/you said:-
If, in my turn, I may correctly quote Voltaire "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
However when you preface a post with as intolerant a remark as "to hell with the scientists" and then proceed to make a statement which has more to do with urban myth than anything else, you can expect ME and others to exercise _our_ right to free speech too.
Irrelevant. We're not talking about how to cure a case of verbal diarrhoea or how to run a hot water pipe. Cite me one reputable vinous authority who says a) that vibration is as important as temperature control, and b) gives some kind of logical explanation for it.
including mechanical engineers
possess directly in the past 7 years.
I'm unimpressed with the fact that it's your business. I've met any number of people working in the wine business whose only common characteristic is a deep and abiding ignorance about their business. As for your "authorities" ...
Name a couple.
The problem with standing on the shoulders of giants is that you have that much further to fall when they are revealed to have feet of clay.
Lay explanations may _sound_ to the lay as having more sense, but nevertheless can be false.
Indeed. Although you're over simplifying. Part of the process involves the polymerisation of tannins - using more or less lay language. A bit like the reactions which make perspex from methyl methacrylate, or polythene from ethylene.
Give one example. It plum just doesn't happen.
Now you're entering MY domaine. I'm an ex chef. A broken hollandaise is an emulsion which separates. When unbroken it's in a meta stable state, so it's simply _returning_ to the stable state of oil and water not being mixed together. As such this is a purely physical phemonenon, there's no chemical change taking place. As it happens I'm not even sure that vibration will have a consistent effect. I suspect that ultrasound vibration will tend to create/recreate the emulsion in fact.
If anything, I'd expect vibration, long term violent vibration to cause the tannins to remain in suspenders - err - suspension. But here we're talking about quite another phenomenon. In this group, where in general - with the possible exception of Mike Scarpitti - the level of intelligence is fairly high, you must expect a healthily sceptical attitude and should expect to have to justify what you say, I'm afraid.
I recommend as reading material "Eight keys to Eden" by Mark Clifton (iirc). His thesis is that there are many different ways of arriving at the truth and cites "Relying on eminent authority, without question and without demur" as being the most primitive and least accurate. Although it was written as science fiction, it was for many years a course book for degree level philosophy students in London University. I might add that he's equally critical of the second "key" which is to "Refuse the statement of eminent authority - without reason and without exception".
] Salut/Hi Mike, ] ] le/on Wed, 05 Oct 2005 04:17:26 GMT, tu disais/you said:- ] ] >OK - I'm ready ... ] ] Are you the man reponsible for ] ]
formatting link
]
Is this one of those cute joke books like "The collected wisdom of George W. Bush" where the pages are blank, or is my browser just incapable of seeing it?
Re vibration, it is very difficult to find a cellar in Paris that is completely vibration free, either from the metro or sources like traffic and furnaces. Yet there are many fine collections that are stored in these conditions, without apparent harm. The obvious empirical conclusion is that vibration plays a small or perhaps negligible role in long term storage, although it can be annoying because bottles are not "well rested" for consumption. My 2 centimes.
le/on Wed, 5 Oct 2005 11:43:59 +0200, tu disais/you said:-
I looked with two browsers. I presume it is akin to the "How many Frenchmen?" cracks. Inaccurate, xenophobic and stupid. When Andrew was with us recently, we went to various villages and while there, he saw some of our war memorials. I think he was truly shocked to see just how MANY men died during the 1st World War from this area. As for the technology crack, if that's what it was, it's obvious he has never travelled on French railways, been to Millau or heard of Concord. I expect that he thinks it's funny. I find it on a par with the "Where can you eat well in the USA?" idiocies. If it turns out that there was information there that IE6 or Opera 8 were unable to view, then I'll be the first to apologise.
With which I agree absolutely. I had always thought it was quite an important factor, but discussion here and elsewhere has led me to change my mind. I'd not be so absolutist as to say it has _no_ influence, but - as Mark said in his original post
important as
Which is apparently the remark that set Mike from galtwine off on his high horse.
There are thousands of browsers, but only a few of them are for the web and many of them are no longer used, although many can be downloaded from antique browser sites. I have several browsers installed. The page you mention shows the "blank" content the same on the most recent versions of IE6, SBC/Yahoo DSL(IE6 based), MSN9 (IE6 bases), Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera. Also on the old browsers NN4, and MSNTV. Also on the special purpose Amaya. If you take the page to validator.w3.org , you find the page fails validation as html 4 as specified in the Doctype. There are 100 validation errors listed. The W3C is the international organization that sets the standards for html. I suspect the "blank" content of the page will be seen the same on well over 95% of browsers now in use on the web.
Of course one can put just about anything they wish on a web page. I am not a good mind reader and can only speculate on why the mentioned page was written as it is. However, if I had a commercial web site that wants to sell things, I think that I might want to consider changes in it if some potential customers might find it distasteful.
On 5 Oct 2005 09:58:03 -0700 " snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" wrote:
] ] Ian Hoare wrote: ] ] > >]
formatting link
] > >] ] > >
] > >Is this one of those cute joke books like "The collected wisdom of ] > >George W. Bush" where the pages are blank, or is my browser just ] > >incapable of seeing it? ] >
] > I looked with two browsers. I presume it is akin to the "How many ] > Frenchmen?" cracks. Inaccurate, xenophobic and stupid. When Andrew was with ] > us recently, we went to various villages and while there, he saw some of our ] > war memorials. I think he was truly shocked to see just how MANY men died ] > during the 1st World War from this area. As for the technology crack, if ] > that's what it was, it's obvious he has never travelled on French railways, ] > been to Millau or heard of Concord. I expect that he thinks it's funny. I ] > find it on a par with the "Where can you eat well in the USA?" idiocies. If ] > it turns out that there was information there that IE6 or Opera 8 were ] > unable to view, then I'll be the first to apologise. ] ] There are thousands of browsers, but only a few of them are for the web ] and many of them are no longer used, although many can be downloaded ] from antique browser sites. I have several browsers installed. The page ] you mention shows the "blank" content the same on the most recent ] versions of IE6, SBC/Yahoo DSL(IE6 based), MSN9 (IE6 bases), Mozilla, ] Firefox, Netscape, and Opera. Also on the old browsers NN4, and MSNTV. ] Also on the special purpose Amaya. If you take the page to ] validator.w3.org , you find the page fails validation as html 4 as ] specified in the Doctype. There are 100 validation errors listed. The ] W3C is the international organization that sets the standards for html. ] I suspect the "blank" content of the page will be seen the same on well ] over 95% of browsers now in use on the web. ]
Amaya, eh? Probably shows most of the web as blank... :) Honestly there are many pages that aren't compliant; I regularly use Dillo, (which I recommend when frames aren't required) which rather annoyingly signals each non-complying statement to the console.
] Of course one can put just about anything they wish on a web page. I am ] not a good mind reader and can only speculate on why the mentioned page ] was written as it is. However, if I had a commercial web site that ] wants to sell things, I think that I might want to consider changes ] in it if some potential customers might find it distasteful. ]
As Ian points out it appears this is a tasteless and juvenile joke. Rather poor business practice. But maybe we aren't the target audience in this group, anyway.
le/on 5 Oct 2005 09:58:03 -0700, tu disais/you said:-
Have you, that's interesting... I "only" have IE6 Opera and now Firefox 1.07 installed though I've Firefox 1.5 beta which I've not yet got round to installing. Do yuo have them all to help you research on compliance or
-(sorry, this is drifitng a long way off topic.)
I can't say that I'm surprised,.... I made a point of making sure all my pages passed when I upgraded mine to use CSS, though with some recent changes, I haven't checked since.
Indeed, but in combination with a similarly named link elsewhere in the site, I stand my my previous assessment.
If it smells like camel, and kicks like camel, then by golly I'll treat it as camel - to misquote poor old Rudyard.
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