effect of magnets??

I hear that they work wonders for back pain and sleepless nights when you embed them in your mattress too. Best used in conjunction with crystals. ;)

-- Ross McKay, WebAware Pty Ltd "Words can only hurt if you try to read them. Don't play their game" - Zoolander

We've had this discussion before - I wouldn't buy such a thing. Patience is best. Darlene

A friend of mine just bought one of these. She and her friend believe they work. The store owner who sold it to them is a friend of theirs interesting enough.

I don't believe it. I am not a chemist nor a pro wine maker but I would think that the most magnets could do is temporarily orient the positive and negative ions in the solution. I don't see how this could change the wine let alone instill the characteristics of aging (slow oxidation, concentration, softening of tannins ...).

Joe

A magnet has no effect on positive and negative ions. A magnet can only act on other magnetic materials (eg. Iron).

There is no way a magnet could speed up the aging of a wine. Personally, I'd run (not walk) away from this shop owner, as who knows what else he's willing to foist off on you.

I will pass along a way to age a very young wine if you want to drink it right away. Decant half a bottle, place your hand over the opening of the bottle, and shake like mad for 10 seconds. Do the same with the decanted portion. It'll age the wine like one of those quickly-flipping calendars they used to put in movies to show time passing quickly. About 2 hours later, the wine will be dead as a doornail from having been completely oxidized, so drink up! Now if the $40 buys you a set-up where the magnet is a stir-bar like they used to use in chemistry class that spins and pulls a vortex of air through the wine, then the owner is not quite as much of a twit as they sound, but I kinda doubt that's what they're selling.

By the way, I was told this tip originally by a Napa valley tour guide, and have successfully gotten this to work twice in the past 6 years. I've also heard that leaving a bottle in a hot car trunk for an afternoon also ages a young wine quickly, but that's just a rumor that I'd prefer not to try to prove out. :-)

Rob

Rob,

I agree with you 100%. The shop owner sounds like a con artist to me.

Here's another tip for "speed breathing" a bottle of wine. Open it & pour out about a glassful. Seal the bottle bottle with a Vac-U-Vin stopper, and pump it to a high vacuum. Slight foaming may appear. (The next step is not for the faint of heart or weak of hand.) Holding the bottle by the top with one hand, give it a sharp thump with the heel of the other hand. This will generate a shock wave which will nucleate millions of bubbles, thereby eliminating a lot of CO2 in seconds. The process can be repeated 'til no more CO2 evolves. If you compare the treated wine to the glassful removed, you should find a marked improvement.

Because no O2 is introduced, this degassed wine doesn't fade like aerated (shaken) wine.

I wouldn't do this to a Fine Wine, but I've yet to do it to a bottle and not get an improvement. Hmmm....Maybe I need to buy better wines. ;-)

Luck, Mike MTM

Why not get one and make it multi-tasking. When you're not fast-aging your wine with the magnets, you can: a) strap it to your incoming water line and it will magically soften your water and de-scale the pipes without the use of salt or other chemicals. b) wear it on your wrist or around your neck to relieve the pain of arthritis. c) use it to hold notes on your refrigerator door. d) suddenly realize, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Ross

A friend of mine bought one of these from our local beer/wine supplier. He maintained that it aged the wine. I poo pooed the idea. As I remember from the little science I had as a kid, magnetism affects only iron, steel, nickel, and cobalt (whatever that is) and maybe a couple of other things discovered since then. Well, he said the store proprietor swore by it personally and let my friend sample a glass before and after. He said he could taste the difference and bought one. My friend invited me over to conduct the same test. And, by golly, I could taste the difference, too. So, my wife bought me one for Christmas. And I still can taste the difference. BUT, I'm still skeptical. I strongly suspect that what my friend and I are experiencing is the placebo effect whereby one gets the result that one expects even if the agent supposedly causing the effect is really ineffective. Regardless, I guess if one tastes the difference (or thinks he/she does) and enjoys the wine that what matters.

Anyone want to buy a Perfect Sommelier?

It'd be easy enough to test its efficacy, if you have some cooperative other party:

Take an unopened bottle of wine. Get your third party to pour two glasses of the wine. Get your third party to treat the remainder of the bottle. Get them to pour a third glass, keep track of which glass is which, and present you with the three glasses. If you can pick out the two identical glasses, then there's something like a one in three chance that the thing actually does something.

For the more sophisticated verion of the test, get your third party to find you a statistician, who can then tell you how many times with how many wines you'd have to repeat the test before you could get to a reasonable likelihood (like 95%, maybe) that the thing actually does anything.

Dave

Njord ( snipped-for-privacy@example.com) wrote:

-- Dave

Njord,

Interesting. Did you happen to notice if the treated wines are a bit warmer then before treatment? Someone, a while ago, suggested that the effect of this machine might be to slightly warm the wine through inductive heating, perhaps, or maybe just plain heat from its coils. Of course, that would improve , or at least change, the taste of many wines.

Would it be possible for you to conduct a carefully measured test with an accurate thermometer? All in the name of Science, of course. I know it's a terrible thing I ask of you, drinking two glasses of wine, but enquiring minds want to know. ;-)

Mike MTM

Not entirely true, Ross. Depending on the variety, crystals can be either positive or negative etherium emitters. Unaged wine is also very high in etherium, but can be either positive (if it comes from the Northern hemisphere) or negative (from the Southern). Magnets have been shown to align the etherium in wine into a coherent polarization which emulates the process that occurs naturally over time, reducing the harsh effects of random etherium ordering and creating a wine that tastes smooth and aged. Now, if you were to bring a crystal of the same polarity into the vicinity, its etherium contribution would simply be brought into alignment and no harm done. However, an etherium emitter of opposite polarity would immediately force the etherium matrix within the wine into non-covalent bonding which the magnetic field can no longer affect. If this is done, there is a good chance you will have irreversibly damaged the natural order of the wine and it might never age properly. Some recent studies suggest that several months inside a pyramid might unlock the bound matrix, but results are inconclusive at this time.

Crystals and magnets are not toys, Ross. In untrained hands, they can do great damage if not used properly. I hope you will educate yourself a bit more on this topic before handing out advice.

Bwian the Naughty

Exactly why I only drink my wine when wearing my pyramid hat. I want to keep the etherium aligned with my chakra.

From Bwiam the Noughty

Who is taking my name in vain ( vein/vane/vine/wine ---ah that's it vino! )

I think that's illegal in some jurisdictions.

Gabriel

Thanks for that very informative post, Brian. I have to admit that I was simply working on the knowledge passed to me by my LHBS, and from manufacturers' literature. It is good to know that good science can still play a part in winemaking, and that some members of the online community like yourself are good enough to step forth and share that science with us when hearsay and falsehoods abound.

regards, Ross.

-- Ross McKay, WebAware Pty Ltd "Since when were you so generously inarticulate?" - Elvis Costello

That's why we're all here, Ross. And the best thing you could do now would be to go back to your LHBS proprietor and pass along this information. In that way, this knowledge can be shared with all his customers. As Martha would say, that's a good thing.

Brian

Damn, I didn't check to see if the magnetic sommelier was made in the Southern or Northern Hemisphere.

Good idea. The only accurate thermometer I have is a rectal one. Do you suppose I could use that?

Sure. Should I tell you how?

Forgive me, Njord. I couldn't resist a straight line like that. ;-)