“FRANKENSTEIN WINE” FOR THE NEXT GENERATION. WILL THE FUTURE OF WINEMAKING BE MADE UP OF ELECTRIC SHOCKS INSTEAD OF WINE BARRELS, ELECTRODIALYSIS, INVERSE OSMOSIS, AND DNA STUDIES?

Is it possible that wine will soon become a sort of Frankenstein? Will our children be drinking something very different from what we consider wine today? Yes, it is a possibility, at least according to WineNews, one of the most popular sites of Italian wine enthusiast.
And this was, in fact, a central topic discussed at Vinitaly (6-10 April 2006), which is one of the most important international events for the wine sector. One example of this new technology is the latest invention from Japan: a method that allows new wine to be immediately aged through a process of electric shocks. And the Japanese company that has invented this technology is already forming collaborations with winemakers in the U.S. states of California and Washington, and hopes that by the end of the year to start selling bottles of wine made with this method online for a cost of about 5 dollars per bottle.
In the meantime, wines made with electrodialysis machines are also starting to work with the direct intervention of positive and negative charges that constitute the chemical combinations of the multiple substances that make up wine. Concentrator machines, once considered the ultimate “top” winemaking machines, are now just about obsolete tools, that have been progressively substituted by inverse osmosis machines (originally developed for the filtering of blood in dialysis apparatuses), which, working at high pressure levels, pass wine through membrane filters capable of selectively blocking determinate components (water, polyphenols, etc.). Unlike the concentrators, which have their disadvantages, this newer technology only offers advantages. With such a machine it is possible to totally mutate the composition of any wine.
Studies on grape gene sequences continue and will soon offer an entire DNA map. This information will allow researchers to establish whether or not wines actually contain the grape varieties that have been indicated on their bottles. And it will also become possible to create a “super grape” with genes that come from other species, capable of resisting diseases, and with added aromas ...
Though this may all seem like science fiction, these are events that are already taking place, mostly in the so called “New World” countries. In both Australia and Chile, it is permissible to add aromas to wines, or rather, synthetic scents that are usually the result of long bio-chemical processes that begin with the maturation of the grape and ends in the wine cellar with fermentation and refinement.
It is well known that wine is a product of transformation and without today’s technological contributions we would be drinking much lower quality wines, but with this list of possible technological novelties for the future of winemaking, it is definitely wise not to judge them Inquisition style, but to seriously reflect on new options, and to remember, above all, that it really is nature’s product.