Fake wine that tastes the same as the real stuff

I have a large list of Burgs that they can start with. Bezerkers might be the best crowd to do double blind tastings with the results. What say you?

How much are they paying Rudy to consult from jail?

Berserkers in general would be a poor choice for comparison tastings because they can’t stand, and don’t drink, the kinds of industrially blended wines Replica is emulating.
Perhaps a few ITB posters are required by their job to subject themselves to these concoctions. They might provide meaningful, but ultimately useless, comparisons.

I am unapologetically in favor of this.

I am looking forward to telling the home replicator, “Latour '83, at 54 degrees one hour decant.”

Later, some “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”

Perhaps some Doe Mane “Romantic Country” Burgundy in my future?

The sentence in the article I found most interesting was:

It didn’t take long before they realized that, in most cases, even professional critics couldn’t distinguish their facsimiles from the originals.

They realized professional critics couldn’t tell the difference. You can’t just realize something like that. Were there really some critics who couldn’t; or not? I suspect the realization was wishful thinking, otherwise the claim would be a lot more specific - and very impressive IMO.

Hell I’d be a buyer.

Me too. It is a way to save history. They could just raid Francois’s cellar, get a bunch of tiny samples, recreate the exact wines, and then we can do double blind tests to see if his method can revive old below shoulder wines from 1886.

I just can’t help but think it would make drinking so incredibly fun if you could truly replicate, on a molecular level, tremendous bottles of wine. It would be interesting to see the effect of that on continued production of top-tier wines, though.

Here is MY business proposal:
Large unit with 200 bottle capacity which takes up about the same space as a vinotemp standing cabinet. It has all of the ingredients in there for, say, any Syrah or BDX red wine. It has formulas for various wines. To keep the producers in business and to provide an incentive for them to keep producing wines of an elite level every year, you allow them to sell the formula on a downloadable license basis. Basically, like a video game on XBOX or a song from i-tunes. Each new vintage and you can charge on a per-pour or a per-vintage with unlimited use basis. They could also sell actual bottles to whomever. They could sell back vintage formula licenses without running out of stock. Chave could sell a red and white combo for $500 for unlimited glasses for 6 months, or charge $2,500 for a “top vintage” 1 year license. Margaux could sell a $10,000 any vintage “Season Pass” that is all you can drink, any vintage recipe, for 1 year or something like that. Distributors could buy rights to sell licenses to restaurants.

There is an incentive for wineries to participate because they can re-sell vintages every year without running out of physical stock. Presumably, their physical collections will remain collectible and, even if it does not remain as collectible, will have a market. Any reduction in demand due to supply increases can be manipulated by license cost and any lost profits could be off set by profits generated from annual license sales. Think of how much money Cheval Blanc could realize by submitting a single 1947 from its cave to a molecular analysis and recreation (tested and approved by Cheval Blanc, of course). The recreation license could be sold a million times at an exorbitant price, or even at a relatively reasonable price. It would immediately increase the value of library inventory of nearly every in-demand winery. It would also eliminate the possibility of tainted or spoiled wines. Importantly, it would also largely eliminate the fakes market overnight (though IP hacking and recreation is almost certain to be an issue). Presumably the machine manufacturer would control the license marketplace ALA Apple, and could refuse to broker uncertified licenses, thereby reducing or eliminating the potential for IP piracy.

So, who is going to pony up millions of VC so we can get this off the ground, get the wineries on board, capture the market and make billions?

Totally in.

OMG this is crap. How did the authors get conned into doing a feature on this guy/group?

" They want wine that tastes good and doesn’t cost much. "

No kidding, REALLY? This is a revolutionary concept? And all those lab photos seem like b.s. to me

In the low 90’s on Wine Enthusiast, it’s gotta be good!

Mmmm, get ready for some Hat Show “Shovel Blank.”

Maybe some “Careening Beagle” California cabernet!

It’s gonna be like naming porno movies for these wines.

Perhaps Shaniqua Nome winery “Graffiti” Petite Syrah.

This is analogous to our ability to view famous paintings from centuries ago on arbitrarily high resolution screens: technically indistinguishable, and entirely missing the point

Looking forward to the blind tastings…

Totally! Those lab photos all have the feel of an Onion article ripping on Cold War-era Russian ‘science’. “Look, stuff is happening! Progress!”.

Or they are like stock photos where the photographer tried to hard to make them not look stock. Or the photographer was stoned. Or both.

http://www.onewineperweek.com/2007/08/hottest-wine-bar-in-world.html

This is the future.

I gotta go trademark “Simulacrum Cellars!”

This is the wine equivalent of Disney Main Street or New Orleans Square!

Animatronic wine!

Off the top of my head, think of Butternut Chardonnay and Butter Chardonnay thrown up against Rombauer.

They’re not going to magically recreate First Growth Bordeaux.

But, plenty of young people are drinking this kind of stuff. Most developments in wine tech are oriented around making cheap wine taste better and be more appealing to the masses. I can’t keep Bota Box 3L ‘Dry Rose’ boxes on the shelf. No idea what’s in it. Same with ‘515 Noble Vines’ rosé. Both from Delicato - might be the same wine - all I know is they fly off the shelves without any promotion.

Berserkers in general would be a poor choice for comparison tastings because they can’t stand, and don’t drink, the kinds of industrially blended wines Replica is emulating.
Perhaps a few ITB posters are required by their job to subject themselves to these concoctions. They might provide meaningful, but ultimately useless, comparisons.

Disagree entirely.

We did this or something similar monthly for many years.

Pour the wines blind, don’t tell people what they are, and ask them to review the wines without any discussion. Nobody gets to speak until they’re all done.

Most people aren’t as astute as you might think. And I include myself.

Everyone can explain the crushed limestone that is so obvious once they know the label and can show off what they read about the vineyard. Very few people can tell you all of that stuff without all the external cues.

Exactly

Well… it depend what you think the point is. For some people authenticity is key, while for others all they what is something that looks/tastes good. Others might just be curious and want to check out a lot of great art/wine, but still understand the value of authenticity when it comes to more attainable examples. I have a quite a few art books, but that does not stop me visiting art galleries when I get a chance.