Chemists Build App That Could Identify Cheap Replacements For Luxury Wines 206
schliz writes "Australian startup Wine Cue is combining the chemical composition of wines with customer ratings for what it hopes to be a more objective wine recommendation engine than existing systems that are based on historical transactions. The technology is likely to reach the market as a smartphone app, and could be used to identify cheap alternatives to expensive bottles."
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Informative)
Strad's aren't any better sounding [npr.org] than brand new violins.
Re:insufficiently advanced technology (Score:5, Informative)
The way in which the microwave heats from the inside out...
What???? Granted:
* it's radiative heating, not contact heating
* the penetration depth of microwave in water is between 25-38 mm [wikipedia.org], I assume larger than the IR penetration depth.
but for the rest of the "inside", the heat transfer from those 25-38mm of "out" is not in any way different from cooking inside a gas oven. In other words, the stuffing inside your turkey will cook pretty much the same way in a microwave or classical oven, irrespective of spherical turkeys or placement in vacuum.
Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Informative)
Wine is not as fragile as some wine snobs would have you believe. You pretty well have to really abuse a bottled wine for an extended period of time for it to be noticeable. Virtually every wine you find on the shelf has gone through shipment sweltering in 100 degree heat in the back of a semi, or stored too cold in a warehouse by a uncaring wholesaler.
There is more obvious difference in a wine attributable to how long the bottle has been open than there is attributable to it was shipped, or stored.
More often than not the wine snob won't notice this either, unless it was egregious and prolonged.
Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Informative)
Why on earth would people who eat different foods and have different taste profiles and come from different ethnic heritages be expected to like wines equally.
I've had several blind tastings.
For most people, the ability to taste a difference tops out in the $20-$30 a bottle range.
I've only known one person who had the ability to finely discriminate wine and he came from the new york area.
At one tasting- the one bottle he disliked, everyone else liked.
There is a tremendous difference at the lower end because many of the less expensive wines are either
a) Just bad (and just about anyone can tell this)
b) or they are "Thin" (watered down, one note) which anyone can taste pretty quickly and easily in comparison to a good wine.
But there are plenty of wines good enough for 14-18 a bottle.
And plenty of wines that are good enough after you are tipsy for $9-$14 a bottle.
The truly great wines require an experienced and truly great wine tasting ability.
And why give truly great wine to people who can't tell the difference anyway (i.e. most of us).