You can rent Bottle Shock or you can read this column on wine. Either will shatter your precious notions about wine and the making thereof:"These days, you probably won't find anti-freeze in your bottle, as they famously did with certain Austrian wines in 1985. Or, as in 1987, when methanol was added to some Italian wines and killed 23 people. But the list of what you will find grows ever longer: oak powder, fruit flavourings, acids, cleaning agents, anti-oxidants, and stabilisers. The Australian Wine Research Institute's Analytical Service lists around 40 chemicals that are considered acceptable, including bentonite - an absorbent material, also used in cat litter, which helps remove excess protein from white wine. By comparison, European regulations list over 60 (including three types of bentonite), while the South African list runs to 76."
Rico says he's fortunate in that he doesn't drink a lot of wine, but don't get him started on what they did to Coca-Cola (and why he only drinks the Mexican stuff now)...
1 comment:
Bentonite. That's driliing mud!
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