Are you about to peel the plastic off your ready-made microwave dinner in preparation for a lonely night in front of the television? Don’t worry, millions of others will be lying when the telephone rings right in the middle of Neighbours to their parental figure of choice about their wellbeing, just to get them off the phone to find out Susan Kennedy’s latest tribulations. Is Susan even still on Neighbours? Who cares? I digress.
Speaking of all things zapped and crap, here’s a kooky and somewhat alarming new product that we should expect see in the next ten years: microwaveable wine. Indeed, it’s not a ghetto method of creating mulled wine, but it’s a ghetto and highly technologically sophisticated way of choosing between varietal blends.
Amsterdam-based design studio, Next Nature has created “Nano Wine”, which uses the principles behind nano encapsulation to alter the taste, colour and even smell of wine using microwaves and nano-sized particles contained within the bottle. Depending on the duration of microwave exposure and the wattage, a humble Merlot can quickly become a Syrah, Malbec or Montepulciano with the push of a button. Disturbing.
While mass commercial manufacturing and distribution is a while off, the product’s creation is part of Next Nature’s Nano Supermarket project. For those who prefer that wines come from long-cultivated vineyards, knowing that there is still backlash to the cosmetic industry’s use of nano particles in makeup and sunscreen, one can be certain that there will be much exploration of the side effects before people actually imbibe some potent brew.
Now, excuse me while I got and microwave some cask wine with a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg so I might pretend it’s Christmas all over again. Please send help.
Just a few seconds and you'll have the perfect accompaniment to pasta. Or cancer.
Why is there bacon in that wine glass?
See a brief demonstration of Nano Supermarket in the video below:
Ash
4 months ago
Anecdote time! My British friend in Japan ordered a red wine at a bar. They served it ice cold from the fridge (like every other place in Japan that serves red wine), so my friend went on some long rant, mostly in English but partly in Japanese, about how red wine should be warmer than that, ideally at room temperature, and did some little interpretive dance about the sun and heat and so on. The barman took the wine back, put it in the microwave for a while, and served it back to her scaling hot. She wasn’t too happy.