Is the chemistry of wine aging completely understood? Is it possible to engineer an enzyme, which would speed the process? There is obviously a tremendous potential demand for such a thing.
Considering the size and age of the business, it seems unlikely I'm the first to ever ask this question -
-- Rich
If we are talking about wine, that might be ONE of the reasons for ageing in oak. I am not sure I'd say it is the main one.
That is not my experience, and not the experience of many other wine lovers who are prepared to pay a premium for an older vintage. You need to start with a decent wine of course. Cheap wines will most likely go downhill with time in bottle - and ageing in barrel probably wouldn't help much either!
The cork is a great innovation compared to stuffing an oily rag into the top of a jar (that's how it started). I tend to agree we can do better now, but it is still a controversial subject.
As you would say, QED...
As my primary school teacher used to say, when we were tossing names around at each other: "What you say is what you are".
My teacher would have been a moron to explain projection to first-graders.
Whatever you are or not, it's your responsibility to know where what you write goes. As they say, "ignorance is no excuse". You *did* cross post, so Mike's accusation was not false. And if anything was verbose, it was your unwarranted shouting, Mr non-civil engineer.
Not at all. Many reactions that take place in the bottle are desirable. To use the most obvious one, the cross-linking of tannins (by at least two different pathways) leads to the reduction of astringent flavors in red wine and a more palatable beverage for most people. The deleterious reactions mostly involve the unwanted ingress of oxygen, though an ongoing debate concerns whether some amount of oxygen ingress is a positive for the wine. To the extent that they control oxygen ingress more effectively, screwcaps are a positive development in the sealing of wine bottles.
Mark Lipton (a wine loving Ph. D. chemist)
:)
Yep ... but ... can the wine maker not allow the aging process in their large containers to continue past what they would have before screw tops, so that the wine they bottle is the wine they want you to have ?
My understanding is that they now do age past what they would have, and because they know there will be very limited changes once bottled, can leave it till they think it's ready.
I do note however, that the wine they still bottle under corks is predominantly reds. :) :)
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