Finally, a serious travel shock study!

“Bottles of French wine returning home after year in space”

"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station bid adieu Tuesday to 12 bottles of French Bordeaux wine and hundreds of snippets of grapevines that spent a year orbiting the world in the name of science.

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule undocked with the wine and vines — and thousands of pounds of other gear and research, including mice — and aimed for a splashdown Wednesday night in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa. The Atlantic had been targeted, but poor weather shifted the arrival to Florida’s other side. SpaceX’s supply ships previously parachuted into the Pacific.

The carefully packed wine — each bottle nestled inside a steel cylinder to prevent breakage — remained corked aboard the orbiting lab. Space Cargo Unlimited, a Luxembourg startup behind the experiments, wanted the wine to age for an entire year up there.

None of the bottles will be opened until the end of February. That’s when the company will pop open a bottle or two for an out-of-this-world wine tasting in Bordeaux by some of France’s top connoisseurs and experts. Months of chemical testing will follow. Researchers are eager to see how space altered the sedimentation and bubbles."

What did they charge for shipping?

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There might just be an astronomical difference.

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If i got my physics right, time is technically slower at those orbiting speeds, so the wine should taste younger to discerned drinkers like James Suckling.

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I think the overall amount of oxygen is lower as well, preventing premox.

Bubbles in Bordeaux?

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If you are going to send wine up to space, at least let any astronauts in the space station drink some of it. I guess it is “only” Bordeaux. You experiment on Bordeaux; you drink Burgundy. neener [stirthepothal.gif]

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Probably less than FedEx from most wineries on the west coast

Splashdown is the ultimate travel shock test.

My understanding is that when they opened the shuttle all they found was a note saying they tried to deliver but there was no one on Earth to accept delivery.

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Or that it had been inspected by the TSA.

Exactly.

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And a younger 100 point score is a better 100 point score, right? Taking score inflation to new heights…

My physics is a little rusty, but I think the time in space might have reduced the score acceleration.

For those that are interested in a more controlled study with extra info! Let’s continue the discussion!

Do you get higher drinking those bottles?

Do the wines lose their earthy characteristics?

Do they feel more weightless?

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“These results contradict the popular anecdotal view that wines suffer sensorially from travel shock immediately after travelling. I could go as far as to suggest that we blame a wine for not tasting as it should after travel when in fact it is not the wine but the person who is in ‘shock’, tired after travelling, or regretting the end of the holiday. That said, this experiment needs to be repeated, as results could have been different if another style of wine had been used.”

My experience over decades flying long distances with Champagne is either the wine or I suffer from travel shock. I’d like to see a study that focuses on Champagne, rather than still wines. It isn’t controversial that air travel changes palate perception; airlines season foods differently because of it.

I am agnostic about whether it is the wine or me that suffers from air travel. The distinction doesn’t matter because the result is the same and I don’t drink Champagne after flying for a day or so.

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