I wonder if this is a technological solution for a problem whose impact is so
small that it isn't worth the effort, or the materials to "solve".
For one thing, wine is the kind of product that was made for thousands of years
before people knew anything about inert -or any kind of- gases, oxidisation, or
fermentation. Of course people used their senses to determine the qualities that
we measure today with instruments [1] but if something like wine couldn't be
made to work without today's technology, then it would never have been invented
in the past, when that technology didn't exist.
It used to be that people stored wine in big clay jars -pithoi (singular pithos)
and amphorae- when glass bottles were very rare. These would have been sealed
airtight but the pithoi in particular could take literally tons of wine. I guess
it would be possible to come up with some complicated procedure to keep a pithos
always full to the brim so that the least amount of air would enter, but I
struggle to believe that, e.g. ancient Roman taverns, would have a system like
that in place.
More to the point, my friend's dad makes wine (I help pick the grapes most
years) and he bottles it with a machine that simply inserts a cork. No inert
gases. It's good wine, too. He sells it to a very successful restaurant owned by
his partner. People drink it. I don't reckon anyone complains - partly because
they get to drink the wine while seated right next to the vineyeard, which I'm
sure would improve the taste of even vinegar.
Even more to the point, the dad sends me and my friend a few bottles of his red
each year (we're flatmates). We both drink very conservatively so a bottle can
last us a month or more even. We just put it in the fridge. I can't say I've
ever detected any deterioration in taste. On the other hand I'm not the person
who drinks wine and waxes poetically about tones of banana and caoutchouck etc.
The dad's wine is a strong red with a hefty tannine kick. Personally I like it
very much that way. He also makes white, which I don't like much, and a moschato
(a kind of red aromatic Greek wine) that is delicious. And port, occasionally.
I've never detected a hint of going-off-ness in any of those that I've drank
either at my friend's house or from a batch sent to us by the dad.
So what's up? Is my olfactory system simply defective? I know I can detect
differences in acidity between say 6.0 and 5.8 pH, most of the time, so I don't
think that's the case.
I don't like to make an argument from nature, but it's true that the dad makes
his wine in a very plain, traditional way, with no additives of any kind, except
for some extra yeast in years when the weather is inclement. They even press the
grapes manually, or rather by foot (they have a hand-cranked machine to do the
first press, then someone big gets into the big wine bucket thing and steps on
bags of grapes to squeeze out the last few drops). I'm aware that industrially
made wines sometimes have additives of various sorts. Perhaps these end up
making wine more susceptible to oxidisation and fermentation?
________
[1] I learned recently a heuristic for yogurt making, from a friend who makes
yogurt. She says, once the milk is heated to near boiling point, you wait until
you can stand keeping your pinky in it while counting up to 9, I think. I reckon
the actual number is subjective, you just need a way to have a ballpark figure
for the duration. I reckon also you learn the right temperature by feel without
having to count, once you've repeated the process a few times. I found out from
the internets that the right temperature is 45 degrees Celsius. I told my friend
and she didn't know that. She just knew when her pinky feels it's ready.
For one thing, wine is the kind of product that was made for thousands of years before people knew anything about inert -or any kind of- gases, oxidisation, or fermentation. Of course people used their senses to determine the qualities that we measure today with instruments [1] but if something like wine couldn't be made to work without today's technology, then it would never have been invented in the past, when that technology didn't exist.
It used to be that people stored wine in big clay jars -pithoi (singular pithos) and amphorae- when glass bottles were very rare. These would have been sealed airtight but the pithoi in particular could take literally tons of wine. I guess it would be possible to come up with some complicated procedure to keep a pithos always full to the brim so that the least amount of air would enter, but I struggle to believe that, e.g. ancient Roman taverns, would have a system like that in place.
More to the point, my friend's dad makes wine (I help pick the grapes most years) and he bottles it with a machine that simply inserts a cork. No inert gases. It's good wine, too. He sells it to a very successful restaurant owned by his partner. People drink it. I don't reckon anyone complains - partly because they get to drink the wine while seated right next to the vineyeard, which I'm sure would improve the taste of even vinegar.
Even more to the point, the dad sends me and my friend a few bottles of his red each year (we're flatmates). We both drink very conservatively so a bottle can last us a month or more even. We just put it in the fridge. I can't say I've ever detected any deterioration in taste. On the other hand I'm not the person who drinks wine and waxes poetically about tones of banana and caoutchouck etc.
The dad's wine is a strong red with a hefty tannine kick. Personally I like it very much that way. He also makes white, which I don't like much, and a moschato (a kind of red aromatic Greek wine) that is delicious. And port, occasionally. I've never detected a hint of going-off-ness in any of those that I've drank either at my friend's house or from a batch sent to us by the dad.
So what's up? Is my olfactory system simply defective? I know I can detect differences in acidity between say 6.0 and 5.8 pH, most of the time, so I don't think that's the case.
I don't like to make an argument from nature, but it's true that the dad makes his wine in a very plain, traditional way, with no additives of any kind, except for some extra yeast in years when the weather is inclement. They even press the grapes manually, or rather by foot (they have a hand-cranked machine to do the first press, then someone big gets into the big wine bucket thing and steps on bags of grapes to squeeze out the last few drops). I'm aware that industrially made wines sometimes have additives of various sorts. Perhaps these end up making wine more susceptible to oxidisation and fermentation?
________
[1] I learned recently a heuristic for yogurt making, from a friend who makes yogurt. She says, once the milk is heated to near boiling point, you wait until you can stand keeping your pinky in it while counting up to 9, I think. I reckon the actual number is subjective, you just need a way to have a ballpark figure for the duration. I reckon also you learn the right temperature by feel without having to count, once you've repeated the process a few times. I found out from the internets that the right temperature is 45 degrees Celsius. I told my friend and she didn't know that. She just knew when her pinky feels it's ready.