ALL change is bad, we’re sure you’ll agree.
But as we all prepare for the imminent takeover of our droid masters, one man has given us hope of at least a very pallatable end.
British inventor Michael Pritchard was made an MBE in 2013 for creating the LifeSaver bottle, which can make dirty water safe to drink in seconds.
And he has now excelled even his own life-saving standards with the life-changing Wine Wizard.
His £50 device claims to make a £10 bottle of wine taste like one worth £20 (whatever that tastes like…)
The taste of so-called cheaper reds, whites and rosés can be improved, while younger wines which would have otherwise got far better with age can be matured to their ‘optimum’ quality in just seconds.
It uses ‘smart nano-oxygenation’, which of course means pumping a second or two of bubbles with low oxygen levels into a glass of wine.
The bubbles expand the surface area of the wine by 10,000 times, speeding the evaporation effects of ageing which happen naturally over time through the small amount of oxygen a cork allows into a wine bottle.
Pritchard, 57, from Essex, whose early experiments with wine during Covid saw him turn bottles of red into brown, said via The Times: “It successfully replicates a process that usually takes place over years or even decades in a cellar — meaning the wine can reach its optimal potential in just seconds.
“In turn this enhances the complexity of the wine, accentuating qualities like fruit, nuanced flavour notes and minerality, as well as improving the nose [and] softening the harsher tannin and acids that can make wine taste cheap.”
While the £50 outlay could otherwise be used on ten cheap bottles of plonk, the Wine Wizard isn’t bad value… if it actually works.
One bottle of air is enough to convert 80 bottles of white and rosé or 40 bottles of red. That means it costs just 12p to upgrade a glass of white, or 24p for red.
So, is it any good?
Apparently it is, according to some of the UK’s leading wine experts.
Akshay Baboo, professor of oenology and viticulture at Plumpton College in East Sussex, the country’s leading college for winemakers and sommeliers, was certainly impressed.
After finding a Spanish Ribera del Duero 2020 could be transformed into the equivalent of a 2016 vintage after a quick pump, he admitted: “We could not believe it at first, but the results from our laboratory testing just don’t lie, it’s quite amazing. Now wines can be aged as if by years in just seconds. This technology democratises fine wine appreciation.”
Dimitri Perlutchi, head sommelier at the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Group, added: “I was sceptical that it could make this much difference, but it’s unmistakable.
“When you taste the same wine before and after, it’s been transformed by this invention. It is extraordinary how much better it tastes.”
And if that all sounds too good to be true, then the news that the gadget also supposedly removes some of the chemicals that cause hangover headaches surely means we’re all dreaming.
But Pritchard, who surely must be in line for a knighthood now, warned in The Times: “It’s not a panacea. If you have got a 1958 Pomerol that Parker’s Guide says to open delicately and do not decant and drink immediately, you don’t need to do anything because the wine has achieved what it needs to.
“But if you have a wine that is well put together and designed to improve over time in the bottle, we can improve it in seconds. It will also make an £8 supermarket wine taste better … although we can’t make bad wine taste amazing.”