More magnetic nonsense

[Psi Baba]

Anyone here seen this? It's called The Perfect Sommelier. It's a magnetic widget that is supposed to "age" a bottle of wine in minutes. Uh-huh.

http://www.perfectsommelier.co.uk/

http://www.bettervino.com/

Here is Amazon's description of the product:
How it works is a mystery but that it does work is undisputed by prestigious wine critics, wine makers, sommeliers, and chefs throughout the country. The Perfect Sommelier is a wine enhancer that "ages" your favorite wine in a mere 30 minutes or less as opposed to the years of storage in a dark cellar it would usually take to mature. To use The Perfect Sommelier, place your open bottle of wine on the magnetic base and replace the wine’s cork with the Sommeliers’ top. The magnetic field in the stand and top will age wines to a varying degree, ranging from subtle to dramatic, but will always improve the taste. In general, The Perfect Sommelier will make a wine more mellow and palatable and produce a better nose and bouquet without changing the unique characteristics of the vintage. Due to their high tannin levels, red wines are most affected by this product.

Here is the review I submitted to Amazon:

Science or mojo?, January 21, 2004
Just wondering if anyone's done a double-blind test to see if drinkers can tell the difference between the sommeliered wine and non-sommeliered wine. I have my doubts. File this with your magnetic insoles, your Q-ray bracelets and your Monster cable.

[Colloden]

I wonder if their supplied ‘cork’ is air tight ?
Half and hour of oxidisation may cause some change in flavour (have to check this with a chemist).

[Reb]

I have my doubts about this as well, but the website does describe some double-blind tests...

Reb

[Reb]

Originally posted by Reb
I have my doubts about this as well, but the website does describe some double-blind tests...

Reb

I should have looked at your links before replying. I don't see the description of the double-blind test I remember seeing before. Maybe I saw it somewhere else. I'll look for it.

Reb.

[patnray]

There was an article about this in the Bad Science column of the Guardian some weeks back: Magnetic Wine (http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1098932,00.html)

Seems that many companies are selling similar products. Next we'll have someone selling wine with "enhanced" magnetic properties...

[magicflute]

If you open a bottle of wine and then replace the cork, you will introduce enough oxygen to start oxydation. This would tend to improve the flavor of the top couple of inches of wine in the bottle after an hour and a half. This is the reason that you decant older wines into a decanter vessel which exposes more of the wine to oxygen and allow it to breathe. The action on pushing the new cork in pressurizes the head space in the bottle, thereby helping to introduce the oxygen into the top layers of the wine. I'm sure any homebrewers of wine or beer will be familiar with this.

Hmmmm... where did I store that bottle of Catillon Peach Lambic?
all of the sudden I am in the mood for a personal test of these theories! ;)

[michaellee]

originally posted by magicfluteIf you open a bottle of wine and then replace the cork, you will introduce enough oxygen to start oxydation Yes, but there is quite a distinction between aging a bottle of wine and allowing one to breathe before drinking. The tannins found in wines, can come from the wine grapes, stems and seeds; sometimes are added by the wine maker during certain points of the process; and from the oak or wood casks the wine matures in.

After the wine is bottled and corked, the tannins in the bottle gradually accumulate and precipitate out of the wine- along with other chemicals found in the wine- into the sediment inside the bottle at the bottom. This process occurs naturally, over time, and as of today, the only known way to remove tannins from any liquid substance, including water and wine, other than by this natural aging, is through filtration. There are filtration systems on the market today that perform this task.

For the Sommelier product to claim its magnetism somehow removes tannins and ages the wine is preposterous. Most wine experts are unaware of one other important role tannins play inside a bottle of wine. The tannins actually prohibit oxidation of the wine during the aging process.

As far as allowing a bottle of wine to "breathe", many misconceptions are accepted as fact concerning this ritual. In a perfect wine world, there would be no reason to "breathe" any bottle of wine. In the real world, the only time breathing may improve the quality of a wine is when a full-bodied, meant to age red wine is opened before it should be. Full-bodied reds that have aged properly in the bottle should never be allowed to breathe or be decanted.

In the case of opening a bottle before it is properly aged, decanting the wine is the best method to breathe the wine. Decanting exposes more of the un-aged wine to oxygen and theoretically "opens" the wine's aromas and allows the dormant flavors to awaken, while reducing the astrigent taste (mostly derived from the tannins). However, the measurable amount of tannins in the wine do not reduce magically just as the wine hits oxygen; actually the astringent taste appears milder because of other processes occuring that mask the acidic taste.

This also allows what I will call microscopic air bubbles to be released from the wine. These "bubbles" are the result of the fermentation process, and remain in the bottle until exposed to oxygen. Exposing only the tiny neck of an uncorked bottle of wine to oxygen for 30 minutes will make little or no difference.

The Sommelier doesn't even allow the bottle of wine to breathe properly, because it replaces the cork with its own "top", meaning that the bottle of yet to mature red sits there for thirty minutes, having allowed about 1 percent of its volume to breathe for about 15 seconds, or however long it took to replace the cork with the Sommelier top.

This product's claims can easily be tested. Not just by double blind drinking tests, but the levels of each element found in a bottle of wine can be measured before and after exposing it to the Sommelier. I would be glad to test the Sommelier, but I will not pay for one.

[Undodog]

I think there have been recent threads on the same kind of device.
The other devices dont claim to age the wine, though. They claim to re-align the particles(?) in the wine back to the way they were magnetised by the earth before the grapes were squished.
(I'd qoute sources but it's hometime.)

[michaellee]

I think there have been recent threads on the same kind of device. The other devices dont claim to age the wine, though. They claim to re-align the particles(?) in the wine back to the way they were magnetised by the earth before the grapes were squished Oh yes, the old "I know how each element of wine grapes are affected by the earth's magnetism and I re-align the wine made from said grapes elements gizmo." The people responsible for this product should just raise their hands and turn water into wine, its got to be much easier.

[phildonnia]

Here's a similar thread:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31820

[Psi Baba]

So based on their priniciple, then, a malicous person would be able to ruin a bottle of old wine by using one of those bulk tape erasers to scramble everything.

patnray, thanks for the link. That was an interesting article.

michaelee, now I know where to direct next question about wine!

[FFed]

There is a winery not to far from me that uses Pyramid Power to make their wine.
http://www.summerhill.bc.ca/

[magicflute]

Their claim is that somehow a magnetic field cause changes in the wine by whatever means, and that these changes are beneficial and that you can "taste" the changes. That is why I addressed how uncorking and corking may cause a detectable change in the flavor of the wine. Does it taste better? Well, taste is subjective. I love Belgian Gueuze, some people think it tastes like horse sweat! :D