Tasting Wine From Space

Mystery Wine Revealed

So you’re out at a bar and somebody says to you, “Let’s go taste some wine from space.”

How would you set it up? What would you look for? What would it taste like?

In a past issue of the Does God Drink? newsletter (Feb. 7, 2021) we talked about a French scientific experiment that launched 12 bottles of mystery wine into space from the U.S. Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida about a year and half ago.

Officials in Bordeaux, France just revealed that the bottles of wine aged for 14 months in space on the International Space Station were Chateau Petrus 2000. Petrus has been one of the best wines on earth for a long time and now it’s the best wine in space.

Suppose you were one of the chosen twelve there in Bordeaux, how would go about tasting something no one else has ever tasted before?

“Three wine glasses were set in front of us, carefully placed within differently-numbered circles.

Each contained a 112 ml tasting sample of the same unmarked Bordeaux wine – but at least one of the three had spent 438 days on the International Space Station (ISS) traveling 300,000,000km in zero gravity.

We were told that half of the 12 tasters had two space wines and one earth wine in their glasses, and the other half had the reverse. And from there we were left to determine whether the journey to space could be identified by sight, smell and taste alone.”

—Jane Anson, Decanter Magazine, March 25, 2021

Look at the book Does God Drink?

The Set up

Jane Anson’s Decanter Magazine article notes that the 12 tasters were divided into two groups. Each got three glasses in front of them. (see video here). They knew that the wine was a Bordeaux and that one group got two glasses from earth and one from space, and the other group got two from space and one from earth.

This is critical to trying to eliminate bias. If you are a taster you don’t know if there is any difference at all. If you do notice a difference, then which two glasses are the same? What do you do if they all taste different from each other?

Do you assume whoever sets up the tasting could throw a ringer into at least some of the glasses just to keep people off balance? Probably not in this group, but in most tastings that is absolutely possible.

It actually is possible that all three glasses could taste different for other reasons—-because of bottle variation or some inadvertent mistake in handling. Or maybe they are different to you (but not to anyone else) because you are more sensitive to particular tastes or smells. Or less.

If you do this kind of thing on a regular basis, you know your sensitivities vary with your body’s changing chemicals. Or, what you ate. Or, where you are when you taste. So, you have to adjust for you as well as the wines.

The Tasting

From the reports it seems like Chateau Petrus from space on the whole, tasted like Chateau Petrus from earth. There was no startling difference, but there were distinct differences.

“There were more floral aromatics [and] the tannins were a bit softer and more evolved,’ she said, but added, ‘I just tasted one bottle [from the space station], so I can’t guarantee there isn’t bottle variation.” — Jane Anson writing for Decanter Magazine.

There were differences in color, some slightly browner than others while some remained a brick red around the edge of the glass which is traditional characteristic of some wines, including Petrus.

Anson also says that floral aromas in the wine from space were heightened—especially that of roses. In addition there was a small amount of sediment in the bottom of the glass.

Overall the wines that spent time in zero gravity seemed to age a couple of years or so.

“Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is famous for predicting some really weird but true phenomena, like astronauts aging slower than people on Earth and solid objects changing their shapes at high speeds. “

from National Geographic, “Einstein’s theory explained in 4 simple steps”, Mitch Waldrop, May 16, 2017

Hmmm….so one day if we can get a rocket close to the speed of light, Petrus 2000 in space would come back younger than the same wine on earth? And the bottles would change their shape? Would the wine be affected the same way the astronauts were?

On the Star Trek: Picard television show the good Captain (by then Admiral) owns his own family winery on earth in France—“Chateau Picard.” He even has a favorite vintage that he uses to bribe a captain to take him back into space.

So, what would happen if Admiral Picard took some of his own wine into space jumping around at warp speeds—6 or 7 times the speed of light? Chateau Picard would do what exactly? Turn back into grapes? Come back in square bottles?

When the conditions around a bottled wine change, the wine changes too.

There is a real life point here hidden in the science fiction. When the conditions around a bottled wine change, the wine changes too. Moving at 7 times the speed of light in space would qualify as a change in conditions around a bottled wine made on earth.

So does sitting on a warehouse dock in NYC at 20 degrees below zero overnight. When I was managing a wine importer in New York City I had to deal with that more than once. The trucks would sometimes come in late because of bad weather and the drivers would just park in front of the doors of the dock until morning.

Frozen wine really doesn’t thaw out well at all.

From time to time during sub zero conditions in Manhattan I also had to go down to the docks in Manhattan when dock workers forgot to plug in the containers’ heaters. The wine, still on board the ship, did not do nearly as well as the wine in space.

Once I had an airline container left on the runway over night in Chicago when it was minus twenty five degrees. Unfortunately, they were all special vintages from Classified Growths in France. That means some of the most expensive wines on earth froze. That one cost the airline’s insurance company over $1 million.

Wines are like people. They are picky about where they live and what the weather is like. As a living thing they exist in a very narrow temperature range. Generally 50-75 degrees or so. Outside of that in either direction bad things happen.

Most of the time you don’t really know what the bottle you are buying has been through. Some wines you didn’t like may have just been handled badly in extreme weather conditions. Now it may even have gone into space.

What you are tasting at home tonight isn’t going to taste the same as it does at the winery. Especially if that bottle has been sent into space. Or Miami.

See Does God Drink? on Amazo

Space vineyards

Some day there will be vineyards in space, on space stations or maybe even some long trip ships. This launch of Chateau Petrus was the first tiny step in that direction although that’s not why they did it.

Scientists took small cane cuttings, put them in a special box and launched those with the bottles of Petrus to see if zero gravity could produce disease resistant strains of vines that might adjust better to climate change—lack of water for instance, new or changing pests, or the long term changes in temperature in the vineyards.

Then, scientists replanted the canes and they got this:

These cuttings were replanted when they got back from space, then pruned of some growth and flowers because they are growing faster than normal. At this stage of a vine’s growth you want the energy of the vine to go into making deeper roots.

You can read the original story, including all these photos, in detail at www.decanter.com. You need to become a member to see it which costs around $8/month. There is also a free newsletter.

Space vines

In this case, scientists were seeking answers to earthly problems in space. Tomorrow there may be whole vineyards on the moon or Mars. There may be Grape varieties we don’t dream of now. That could mean wine tastes we don’t dream of too.

Also new technology. What will a vineyard tractor on the moon look like? Not to mention that pressing wine in zero or reduced gravity environments will be a challenge. Gravity fed presses won’t work the same way they do on Earth. They may even have to seek for answers to the space vines’ problems back on earth.

Natural will have a whole new meaning. Wine from real vines will be sold at a big premium. And, as all Star Trek fans know, nobody in the galaxy likes the artificial alcohol coming straight out of the replicator.