PIX: David Brown on the Myth of Travel Shock..

WINE TALK
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Whew…after all these yrs of tedious back & forth on the various wine boards on whether Travel Shock in wine is a myth
or a reality, this question is finally settled, once & for all. Travel Shock is a myth!!

He bases his definitive conclusion on this one data point…the btl of Petrus that traveled into space. Now that’s gotta be
the ultimate in travel shock, as he makes his case. But the article is seriously flawed. The wine that was the Space-traveled
Petrus was allowed to rest for 2 months afore it was tasted. That should be sufficient for even a space-traveled Petrus to recover.

Heck…the guy’s a piker. Us LosAlamos types can draw grand conclusions like this one based on no data points!! We do it all the time.

Anyway, this thread ought to go on for at least 35 pages!!

Tom

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What was the point of taking a bottle of wine into space if you were going to let it rest two months before opening it? It’s like a recipe to prove nothing.

I’d still love to hold a blind tasting for a group of ardent travel shock believers. I’m pretty sure almost none of them would agree to do it, which is probably telling enough without actually having the tasting.

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Well Tom wouldn’t quantum theory tell us a bottle is in a state of travel shock and not in a state of travel shock at the same time? It’s only when you pull the cork that it’s fate is sealed. So I understand.

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Well, Chris…it was a whole friggin’ case of Petrus that went into space.
The purpose of the experiment, accroding to the article:

(As for why it was in space in the first place, it was to test the effects of microgravity on the chemical and biological properties of the wine.)

Tom

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If travel shock was a real thing, wouldn’t just pouring a glass put the wine into an extended coma?? May need to start drinking wine right out of the bottle with a straw! Cheers! [wink.gif] [stirthepothal.gif]

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Wouldn’t this test have to be run under both cork and screwcap to have any validity?

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It depends on whether the cat drank the wine.

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GlenMonsanto tried the same shit with whisky. Sent a bottle of Ardbeg into space as a promotional gimmick to divert attention from the fact that they had not distilled a spirit fit for human consumption since they purchased the distillery and thereby ruined my life.

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Not at all - if you believe that travel shock is a thing, and want to study whether orbital damage is a separate thing, then you need to neutralize the (potential) effect of the first to study the second. After all, it would be a shame to conclude that sending the bottle around the earth a few hundred times at 17,000 miles an hohur shocked the wine if it turned out that the thing that really shocked the wine was the car ride from the landing site.

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A rocket launch from the Chateau is the only way to really know, methinks.

<< Juicing the thread for Tom >>
fred

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Sometime in the mid 70s I imported 100 cs of 1972 Chorey Cote de Beaune from Tollot beaut on a direct Import deal.
Opened up a bottle…oh oh…better get to work on my resume.
Two months later…dynomite!!! Job saved.

This is an issue that was big in the 70s but this is the first mention of it I have seen in a long time.

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Wait, Ardbeg is not good now?

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The last good Ardbeg was distilled in 1990. The last great Ardbeg was distilled in ‘76 or ‘77 (I’m in the ‘76 camp). GlenMonsanto has not distilled one drop fit for human consumption in the 22 years since it acquired Ardbeg. A crime against humanity; ruining the once greatest distillery in the history of mankind.

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Tom I am taking the under on the 35 pages. champagne.gif

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The article mentioned that the panel of tasters pronounced that time in zero gravity hadn’t damaged the wine. It did not say that they did a comparative tasting against another bottle. And yes, two months negates any conclusion about travel shock.

However, this was a 2000 Petrus, which is arguably not even in a decent drinking window yet, so I’m not trusting anyone’s judgement.

Also, if the rocket happened to travel at close to the speed of light, the wine will have aged more slowly than we on Earth, so it will need even more time to get to the right drinking window.

And most outrageous, what a sad day for an astronaut on the ISS…so far from home, seeing a case of Petrus being unloaded, and being told that it’s going right back on the next flight down, not even a bottle for your service.

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Talk about burying the lede

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Now we’ll see Jreos of 1947 Petrus Space Bottles for sale. Been to the moon and back twice!

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Based on this article, I don’t think the author fully understands the concept of “travel shock”. Obviously everyone involved in the experiment believed in the concept of travel shock, or they wouldn’t have rested the bottle for 2 months prior to drinking.

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You’ve ruined my day.

There’s always wine, I supoose.

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Speaking of relativity - if you tasted that wine at the speed it was travelling, would it taste the same as it did when you were standing still? Or I guess more accurately, traveling at a different speed?