Can't wait for your wine to age? Here is the answer!

Drinks Chat Fine Wine
#1

Those of us of a certain age who find buying wine with too long drinking dates (ie fine Bordeaux etc) a problem just might have an answer in the near future. Bank balances permitting.

8 Likes
#2

Thanks. Might as well send all my Petrus up there!

3 Likes
#3

I wonder what it will do for that bottle of Echo Falls? :rofl: :rofl:

6 Likes
#4

It will be completely transformed and when it comes back you’ll think you’re drinking Yellow Tail!

3 Likes
#5

Can’t wait to see the cellarage bill for that.

4 Likes
#6

Great to see that the ISS is being used for such cutting edge research :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

#7

Wait, one went in a rocket at a high speed away from earth and returned whilst the other remained static… and the returned one is older? Einstein would be most unhappy with this.

6 Likes
#8
3 Likes
#9

In the CNN version of this news item, it reports that Jane Anson said Petrus 2000 was chosen for the experiment because “it is popular with drinkers”…

I clearly need to order a case of it for my weekend drinking as I seem to have missed out on this favoured tipple of the masses.

5 Likes
#10

Wait until Christmas. There’s usually a special offer on - buy one get one free.

3 Likes
#11

Won’t the effective time distortion due to the effects of general relativity cancel out these perceived gains though? If you go far enough and fast enough they might come back younger than their earth bound equivalents :wink:

3 Likes
#12

Just seen Tim’s reply ^^^ :roll_eyes:

2 Likes
#13

A good start. But for really complicated ageing of wine may I suggest Kingsley Amis’s short story “The 2003 Claret” (1958) and a number of follow ups. Time travel is the answer, although Amis’s characters always appear to end up having really bad vinous experiences.

#14

That’s priceless! I particularly liked:

‘Both wines had that signature Petrus note of uncritical reverence and over-extracted pricing,’ said French uber critic Michel Bettanomyces, ‘but the space aged wines also had a very definite aroma of bullshit.’

5 Likes
#15

Certainly, tasting only one bottle out of 12 and hoping to come to some conclusion is fanciful science and statistically meaningless. If they had at least opened all 12 and tasted them against 12 on earth they might have had at least an ‘average’ result.

Two bottles of the same Bordeaux at 20 years of age are quite likely to have slight differences in maturity and development, and in any case a year of storage and handling in less than perfect cellar conditions [the space station/capsule is likely at circa 21degC for astronaut comfort] is probably going to affect it more. …Probably just sponsored by Petrus by a donation of 2 cases of wine for much free publicity!

So, yes, bullshit!

1 Like
#16

The other end of the spectrum

1 Like
#17

So they sent 12 bottles of Petrus into space - and after a year have tasted one. Can you imagine the price the other 11 might sell for at auction? Smart move by Musk - might even part fund the next spaceX.

#18

I thought you should always be careful buying auction lots of 11 or 5 — first bottle of the case (or half case) was terrible so cutting their losses by selling the rest on. :grin:

1 Like
#19

This is very much true. Good advice!

#20

One (wo)man’s drink is another (wo)man’s poison and one (wo)man’s loss is another (wo)man’s gain also spring as easily to mind.

I have loads of bottles of high scoring wines (on CT, from critics) from the ‘right’ places that I’d frankly swap in a heart beat if ‘wine swap’ were a thing. I’d happily buy 5 or 11 bottles of anything I like from a producer I like.

1 Like