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A quick burst of high-voltage electricity could turn a bottle of cheap plonk into a fine, mellow mature wine that will fool the most discerning palate.

Five wineries in China have started scientific trials using electric fields to speed up the process of ageing wine.

If the new technology is successful, it will enable China’s relatively young wine industry to accelerate production to meet rising demand. It will also keep the cost down, by eliminating the need to age wine in wooden barrels.

Details of the plug-in ageing process are revealed today in New Scientist magazine, but, sadly, it’s far too complicated to try at home.

Developed by a chemist at the South China university of technology in Guangzhou, Xin An Zeng, it involves pumping wine through a pipe running between two titanium electrodes fed with a high-voltage electric charge.

Batches of a three-month-old cabernet sauvignon were zapped for one, three, or eight minutes, then analysed for chemical changes that might alter ”mouth feel and quality”.

The youngest a raw wine can be drunk is six months, with most red wines taking much longer to lose the bitter taste of tannin and develop a fine aroma, or nose.

The three-month-old Chinese cabernet was given to a panel of 12 experienced wine tasters after being zapped for a blind taste test.

”The results were striking. With the gentlest treatment, the harsh astringent wine grew softer. Longer exposure saw some of the hallmarks of ageing emerge a more mature nose, better balance and greater complexity,” New Scientist reports.

The best results were achieved after ”three minutes at 600 volts per centimetre”, which gave the electrified wine an aroma similar to an aged wine, as well as the recognisable taste of a mature cabernet sauvignon. But there’s obviously an art to applying the zap. Dr Zeng’s team found upping the voltage and applying it for a longer period made the wine ”worse than the untreated original”.

Although he hasn’t yet discovered exactly how exposure to an electric field alters the wine’s chemistry. Dr Zeng says more than a decade of experiments shows under the right conditions, a quick shot of high-voltage electricity can accelerate some aspects of the ageing process.

”Not only can it shorten a wine’s normal storage time, it can also improve some lower-quality wines. It works just as well with other grape varieties such as merlot and shiraz,” he told New Scientist.

And the French aren’t sneering. University of Burgundy’s oenology professor, Herve Alexandre, has declared the zap is ”a feasible way to shorten maturation times”.

Fortune Small Business) — Looking back, Dominic Rivard has to admit that starting a business in Thailand within weeks of a military coup might not have been the best idea.

It took more than six months to find an investor willing to take a risk on his proposal to build an exotic fruit winery in Southeast Asia. And then, with the government’s ministries in some confusion, it took twice as long as expected to register the company.

“Maybe it was stupid,” says Rivard, but Thailand, with its abundant fruit harvests to supply the winery and its millions of tourists to buy the wines, seemed an ideal location. Two years later, Apsara Valley Wines, located 30 miles north of Bangkok, is distributing its first batch of pineapple, passion-fruit, mangosteen and lychee wines to high-end restaurants and resorts in the area. Rivard’s next goal: to bring these libations to the U.S. market.

A 36-year-old Canadian who has served as head winemaker for more than 10 producers in Canada and China, Rivard has spent most of his life in the business. At age 17 he made his first batch of wine from dandelions and concord grapes in his backyard. Later he took sommelier classes. After a brief stint working in a wine laboratory, he launched his own business as an enological consultant, advising companies on both sides of the Pacific.

In 2002 Rivard was offered a joint venture with a provincial agriculture ministry in China, which gave him a minority stake in the firm and second billing in the company, Tianjin Kernel Rivard Wines. Two years later the business was struggling. Investment in equipment had been heavy, but Rivard believed that essential marketing efforts had been underfinanced.

“We had a very good product,” says Arvin Tian, Rivard’s business partner at the time, “but the company wasn’t managed well.”

Rivard concurs. “By the end I felt like a puppet,” he recalls. “I was nothing more than the white figurehead.”

But Rivard had a family to support. So when the business failed, he signed on as head winemaker at one of China’s largest wineries, Tonghua Grape Wine. After a couple of years he felt restless again. A friend introduced him to Germain Bergeron, a fellow Canadian and serial entrepreneur who was based in Thailand. Bergeron, 40, needed a new venture, and Rivard wanted an ambitious partner. In 2006 Rivard moved to Bangkok to work with Bergeron, founding Hong Kong-based Oeno Wines, an importer and the parent of Apsara Valley.

Rivard says he’s learned from his mistakes. This time, he and Bergeron own a controlling interest in the company. They’ve invested less in production equipment and more in product packaging, a key component in Asia, where wine is often bought as a gift. Rivard has also grown used to the cultural nuances of doing business in the region.

That knowledge proved useful in a recent deal. A large South Korean importer hired Rivard and Bergeron to make a Malvasia grape wine in Italy. After they spent tens of thousands of dollars on production and packaging, and with a container loaded and ready to ship, the importer decided to cancel the order. The reason: a vague complaint about packaging that had been approved months earlier.

“It was very frustrating,” says Rivard. “A North American mind-set would have gotten mad and called in the lawyers, because there were contracts involved.”

Instead, he flew to the importer’s headquarters to renegotiate. It took nearly three months of visits and dinners to get the deal back on track, but Rivard felt it was worth it: “We built stronger relationships with the buyer and solidified future deals.”

In its first four months of sales, Apsara Valley has generated more than $90,000 from its dry and dessert fruit wines. By next year, Rivard and Bergeron hope to top $500,000. That will partly depend on their ability to tackle the U.S. market. They plan to partner with Makiko Yamashita, a Sacramento entrepreneur who will sell the fruit wine under her own brand, Radee. But marketing a largely unknown beverage – and one that sounds unsophisticated to boot – at a premium price may not be easy. Sales of fruit wine in the U.S. grew by less than 8% from 2002 to 2007, according to the research firm Euromonitor International.

“The market is tiny, and it’s hard to get money commensurate with the work you put in,” says Bill Nelson, president of WineAmerica, a trade group whose members include fruit wineries. “Most companies aren’t able to sell fruit wine for more than $10 a bottle.”

Nonetheless, Apsara Valley’s owners continue to feel bullish about the U.S. market. Says Rivard: “We just need the wine-drinking world to open up.”

Robert Joseph has just completed the 2008 India wine challenge. He shared his experience exclusively with indianwine.com. The complete results of 2008 India Wine Challenge can be downloaded from HERE.

1. How do you feel about this year competition? Like response etc.
This year’s competition was around 50% bigger, and attracted 77 Indian wines, the largest number ever judged in a blind competition. This, and the enthusiasm of the local and international judges gives me great optimism both for the Indian wine market and for the future of the Challenge. However, I was also pleased to see that the judges this year were tough in their allocation of awards. I would always rather feel that good wines were unlucky to miss out on a medal than that poor ones were lucky to get one

2. How do you compare the quality of the Indian wine from the Previous year?
There is a definite improvement, but much remains to be done. There is too much unripeness and too many winemaking faults that keep Indian wines from living up to their potential. There were many Seals of Approval; next year, i’d like to see many of these producers get Bronze medals.

3. Any wine particular wines very interesting to you this year?
I was particularly interested to see the success of Chateau d’Ori which has great potential for the future and currently seems set to take on Grover’s mantle; and the Sula Late Harvest Chenin which may do more to build Sula’s reputation than its well regarded Sauvignon Blanc

4. What is the next year goal?
The mission statement if the UK Challenge – and all other Challenges – is “to encourage more people to drink more good wine”. And that’s what I’d like to continue to do next year.

Western connoisseurs once derided Chinese as simple drinkers who mixed wine with soda, and saw the country’s top vintners such as Dynasty as local oddities serving up cheap wines in an immature market.

But a growing number of converts — investors among them — say China could become the industry’s next Chile: a font of quality and affordable wines.

Dynasty, Changyu and Great Wall, made by a subsidiary of China Foods, control roughly half of China’s grape wine market. They are angling to replace local preferences for beer and grain alcohol in a country where international wines still have a small, albeit fast growing, presence.

Though a near-term sales slowdown is possible as U.S. woes fan out across the world, analysts say long-term prospects for China’s homegrown wines are strong as disposable incomes surge and the country’s booming middle-class demands healthier and ritzier lifestyles.

“It should be a gradual process,” Shanghai-based Credit Suisse analyst Shanshan Lu told Reuters.

“The key opportunity comes from the low base, and the key challenge should be competition from foreign brands that are imported into the China market.”

International spirit and wine behemoths Diageo and Pernod Ricard are also aggressively expanding in the world’s fastest growing major economy, but are focusing on high-end whisky brands such as Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal.

China’s wine industry is expected to grow to roughly $13.7 billion in 2010, up from $10.5 billion in 2007, according to research from Euromonitor, and experts say it could be the world’s eighth largest wine consumer by 2012.

Grape wine, however, is still a small portion of China’s market. Non-grape varieties such as yellow wine and rice wine will still account for almost two-thirds, or $8.8 billion, of the market in 2010, Euromonitor says.

By comparison, the global wine market was worth $234.7 billion in 2007, with “still light grape wine” accounting for $164.2 billion of that market, Euromonitor says.

Ninety percent of grape wine consumed in China is red, which unlike white wine is considered a symbol of class and luxury. But even with such an image, Chinese wines are relatively cheap, averaging less than $3 a 750 ml bottle.

Shares in Chinese vintners have also gotten cheaper after steep falls this year and now trade roughly in line with much larger global peers. Dynasty trades at 10.1 times forward earnings, and COFCO’s China Foods trades at 17.4. That compares to Diageo’s 15.6 times, and U.S. giant Constellation Brands’ 16.1 times.

NEAR-TERM UNCERTAINTY

Despite strong long-term prospects, China’s consumer firms are struggling now to pass costs on to customers in a year inflation hit 11-year highs, even as incomes rise.

On Wednesday, Dynasty — 27 percent owned by French wine and spirits group Remy Cointreau — said volume sales for 2008′s first half rose by less than 1 percent to just shy of 30 million bottles, citing keen competition and poor sentiment after floods and a massive earthquake rocked China this year.

ABN AMRO, however, has a “buy” on Dynasty, citing increased sales prices and the company’s commitment to improve its marketing and distribution capabilities.

Rival Great Wall — which controls 15 percent of the market and was an official supplier to Beijing’s 2008 Olympics — is seeing stronger demand.

Its sales rose 92 percent to 94,000 tonnes last year, yielding a 19 percent increase in turnover to HK$2.14 billion, according to CIMB-GK.

Lehman Brothers has an overweight rating on Great Wall owner China Foods, which is backed by state behemoth COFCO.

And dominant player Changyu — partly owned by Italian liqueur maker Illva Saronno and the World Bank’s International Finance Corp — saw revenue leap 27 percent to roughly 1.8 billion yuan in the first half of 2008 on the back of a gross margin of 67 percent.

FANCY FOREIGNERS

Further out, there are fears foreign wines could eventually beat China’s vintners on their home turf as tastes expand among a burgeoning middle class.

Wine imported into the country leapt more than 19 percent to 163,600 tonnes in 2007, according to UBS, and the segment is growing faster than domestic wine.

But contrary to popular perceptions, foreign wines have not penetrated China as deeply as other international luxury items such as BMWs and Louis Vuitton leather goods.

“Considering that wine makes up 5 percent of alcohol consumption and imported wine makes up not more than 6 percent of wine consumption, I do not see imported fine wines eclipsing the big domestic brands anytime soon,” said Don St. Pierre Jr., Managing Partner of China-based wine importer ASC Fine Wines.

Still, for China’s richest, the lure of the world’s most famous wines is too strong to resist, no matter how high the price tag.

In March 2007, for example, a Chinese oenophile bought carry-on wine and spirits worth a record 23,000 euros at a Paris airport’s duty-free shop — including a bottle of epic 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild red wine costing 13,800 euros, airport officials said.

Written by: Jancis Robinson (www.jancisrobinson.com)

Today is the day that a score or two of very hardworking wine students around the globe have been chewing their nails and checking their mail anxiously for it’s the day that the Institute of Masters of Wine announce the results of their exams held in the UK, Australia and the US last May.

I have not caught up with all the results (see below for an update) but I am absolutely thrilled to report that Jeannie Cho Lee MW, pictured here, can now put those precious letters M and W after her name. She passed the exams last year but you may not call yourself a Master of Wine nowadays unless you have written a dissertation on some wine-related topic and had it passed by the IMW’s arcane vetting procedure. And, it should be said, that some people pass the exams but do not manage to complete their dissertations to the IMW’s satisfaction. (I was reminded of this when reading th recent thread on wine tasting and perception started by David Schildknecht. This was the proposed focus of a very interesting dissertation but the topic did not find favour with the IMW.)

Jeannie had already decided to devote her dissertation to the place of her home city Hong Kong in the world of fine wine. So what a windfall it was when HK announced last February that it was scrapping duty on wine and going all-out to make itself the Asian hub of the fine wine world. Jeannie submitted her dissertation a few months ago and has just heard that it has been passed and that she may now consider herself an MW.

Jeannie’s parents are Korean and she was educated in the US. (I first met her at the Harvard Club in New York, as it happens.) But for some time she has been resident in Hong Kong where she lives with her husband and four daughters, and runs a wine school in conjunction with Berry Bros. She is also a prolific wine writer having contributed to publications such as the Wine Spectator for many years. Here is one of her contributions to this site, for example, on the difficult business of Korean food and wine.

This is a great step not just for Jeannie but possibly even more for the Masters of Wine, I feel, spreading their influence to the most dynamic continent for wine in the mid 21st century, with China already producing more wine than Australia.

With Debra Meiburg, together with James Cluer MW whose pass was announced in May, this brings the tally of Masters of Wine resident in Asia to a very satisfying three. And Asian students are so notoriously hard-working, it probably won’t be long until Asians constitute the majority of MWs.

Hong Kong – A wine school, a wine museum and even wine tourism are among the plans being considered by the government to make Hong Kong into a wine hub for the region, a media report said Friday.

Other proposals include the conversion of a munitions store and heritage sites into wine cellars, the South China Morning Post said, quoting Finance Minister John Tsang.

‘We are identifying heritage sites that may be used for storage as well as many other wine-related activities, such as a wine school, a wine museum and venues for wine appreciation events,’ Mr Tsang said.

He added that the conversion of an underground munitions tunnel on Hong Kong Island into a public wine cellar and a private club was a ‘good working example’ of what was possible. The tunnel was redeveloped into a wine centre by Crown Worldwide, a Hong Kong-based removals and logistics company.

Mr Tsang said the Tiger Balm Garden theme park in the Kowloon district of Hong Hong or a munitions storehouse on Stonecutters Island could be ideal places for conversion into wine-orientated facilities.

Nicholas Pegna, manager director of wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, said using heritage sites for wine related activities would benefit the community and tourism.

‘It may include a museum, a wine school and a wine centre with commentary and wine tasting. I do encourage the idea for the public use of old buildings because it is preserving the heritage,’ Pegna said.

Tsang pointed out that Hong Kong investors own about a million cases of fine wine overseas with about half stored in facilities in Britain with the rest stored in France, Spain, Germany and the US.

Conservative estimates predict that given the right facilities and incentives about 50 per cent of this could be brought to Hong Kong for storage or trading.

The government has already ended all taxes and customs controls on wine so that traders no longer need a permit to import, export, store or manufacture wine.

This comes as a research report for Hong Kong’s Trade Development Council forecast that the value of wine consumption in Asia, excluding Japan, is forecast to double to 17 billion dollars by 2012 and rise to 27 billion dollars by 2017.

Hong Kong – A wine school, a wine museum and even wine tourism are among the plans being considered by the government to make Hong Kong into a wine hub for the region, a media report said Friday.

Other proposals include the conversion of a munitions store and heritage sites into wine cellars, the South China Morning Post said, quoting Finance Minister John Tsang.

‘We are identifying heritage sites that may be used for storage as well as many other wine-related activities, such as a wine school, a wine museum and venues for wine appreciation events,’ Mr Tsang said.

He added that the conversion of an underground munitions tunnel on Hong Kong Island into a public wine cellar and a private club was a ‘good working example’ of what was possible. The tunnel was redeveloped into a wine centre by Crown Worldwide, a Hong Kong-based removals and logistics company.

Mr Tsang said the Tiger Balm Garden theme park in the Kowloon district of Hong Hong or a munitions storehouse on Stonecutters Island could be ideal places for conversion into wine-orientated facilities.

Nicholas Pegna, manager director of wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, said using heritage sites for wine related activities would benefit the community and tourism.

‘It may include a museum, a wine school and a wine centre with commentary and wine tasting. I do encourage the idea for the public use of old buildings because it is preserving the heritage,’ Pegna said.

Tsang pointed out that Hong Kong investors own about a million cases of fine wine overseas with about half stored in facilities in Britain with the rest stored in France, Spain, Germany and the US.

Conservative estimates predict that given the right facilities and incentives about 50 per cent of this could be brought to Hong Kong for storage or trading.

The government has already ended all taxes and customs controls on wine so that traders no longer need a permit to import, export, store or manufacture wine.

This comes as a research report for Hong Kong’s Trade Development Council forecast that the value of wine consumption in Asia, excluding Japan, is forecast to double to 17 billion dollars by 2012 and rise to 27 billion dollars by 2017.

America’s leading wine auction house sold $8.2 million of fine vintages in Hong Kong on Saturday in Asia’s largest such sale, underscoring the city’s potential as a regional wine hub.

Acker Merrall & Condit’s inaugural auction of fine and rare wines in Hong Kong drew hundreds of collectors from Hong Kong, China, Asia and the West.

The mood was convivial and bidding brisk during the day-long session which netted HK$64 million ($8.2 million) in sales with 92 percent of the 922 lots sold, as well as smashing at least five world auction records for some of the world’s finest wines.

The day’s highlight was a 12-bottle case of 1990 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, often considered the world’s most expensive wine. It was sold for HK$1.89 million ($242,000) including the buyer’s premium to a Singaporean buyer. The price was a world record for any case of Romanee-Conti of any vintage ever sold.

Three magnums of Dom Perignon champagne of ’66, ’73 and ’76 vintages made $93,000, the highest price ever paid for any champagne. A case of Chateau Le Pin 1982 fetched HK$823,000 ($105,500) — a world record for that vintage, while a case of 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild sold for $155,000.

The ’45 Mouton Rothschild is considered one of the Chateau’s greatest vintages and described as “a Churchill of a wine” with a “V” sign on its label to mark the Allied victory in World War Two.

“It’s a very special piece of history,” said Cecilia Piacitelli, the buyer of the 63-year-old wine.

The auction comes months after Hong Kong decided to abolish its 40 percent wine duty in February to try to develop into an Asian wine hub along the lines of London and New York.

“The tax cut is great, I think the rest of the world needs to follow Hong Kong’s lead, maybe China will be next, Russia (or) Indonesia,” said John Kapon, Acker’s president.

“It’d be great to see other countries follow the lead and realize hey, good wine is part of good life and it just doesn’t make sense to tax it so high,” added Kapon who said China, Russia and South Korea’s wine taxes hovered close to 50 percent.

But some top wine collectors who frequent European and U.S. wine auctions, said the prices in Hong Kong were high.

“I tried to find some bargains but it was difficult today,” said George Tong, a respected Hong Kong wine connoisseur.

Over the years, a small clique of affluent so called “super-collectors” in Hong Kong has established a reputation for seemingly limitless spending on some of the best vintages coming onto the market each year, outbidding other global connoisseurs.

Bonhams hosted a recent $1.5 million wine auction in Hong Kong, the first in the city in over a decade and the first since the wine duties were abolished. Global auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s are reported to be considering sales of their own.

Acker will hold a second Hong Kong wine auction in November.

(Editing by Elizabeth Piper)