The American food popularizer Harold McGee published some time ago in a U.S. newspaper a curious article in which, with his usual dose of good humor as well as scientific rigor, he spoke about the delicate organoleptic balance of the wine and how easily we can? Spoil “a good wine according to the materials with which it may enter in contact.
The author, always ready to experiment, found, for example, as in contact with different types of metal wines free electricity, which in itself is not important, but he created a curious devise to remove odor to cork that some bottles sometimes have. There for through market you can find devices that promise to speed the aeration of wine, but often also produce an effect of loss of the original flavors and aromas.
- The truth is that these products are often expensive and their effectiveness questionable. We can even find necklaces bottle magnets whose manufacturers claim to allow you to taste the wine in all its fullness immediately, no need to decant, or inlaid copper discs promising precious metal, in seconds, to get the same effect that a year aging in the cellar.
- With the help of some friends specialists, respectively, in chemistry and enology, McGee made some blind tastings in which he failed to verify the actual effectiveness of most devices on the market, taking into account that there are practices (as dipping copper coins came to remove unwanted flavors) that meet the same task at a fraction of the cost .
- In fact, the only trick that was effective in this case to eliminate the unpleasant taste of some wine cork, is quite simple: just dip for a few minutes a bit of “film” plastic food in wine. Is compelling scientific explanation : the molecule responsible for the smell of cork , called 2,4,6- trichloroanisole , is very similar to polyethylene, and almost instantly adheres to the plastic , which when removed, wine aromas have lost cork?s.The downside? Many other aromatic molecules will also be lost, and the result can be a wine without cork smell, but with less aromas. But still drinkable.
- What wine would you hate to spoil you? Today we recommend two wines that you really have to enjoy in the right conditions, because they are fantastic!