Turning water into wine, as the Bible says, was an act of miracle performed by Jesus. Fast forward two millennia and you get the technological marvel aptly named Miracle Machine to do the same for you.
According to the article on Yahoo! News, wine industry veterans Philip James, British founder and former CEO of the wine website Lot 18, and his sommelier friend Kevin Boyer, claim they have come up with the world’s first affordable accelerated winemaking device for the home. This device is capable of making a 750 mL bottle of wine, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, within three days.
The Miracle Machine is an easy-to-use device that requires the use of water and some ingredients, as well as the inevitable smartphone app to guide the user through the winemaking process whilst monitoring progress. The app allows the user to select from a list of pre-defined wine types, each listing the grape concentrates and recommended type of yeast as well as other ingredients that are required.
The developers say the Miracle Machine can produce a quality wine to match some of the best wines on the planet at the fraction of the cost. The pair is currently in a quest to secure the necessary funding for building the first 2,000 units.
“Our Kickstarter campaign will launch in a couple of days in which we hope to secure funding for the building of the first 2,000 Miracle Machines. We hope to have those completed and in market by May. Currently we have a couple working prototypes that we’ve been testing with for the past few months,” Kevin Boyer told Wine-Searcher.
At the heart of the Miracle Machine lays the fermentation chamber.
“Obviously we’re keeping the exact science under wraps, but we can tell you the chamber uses an array of electrical sensors, transducers, heaters and pumps to provide a controlled environment for the primary and, as needed, secondary fermentation stages,” Philip James explains.
“For example, while a digital refractometer measures the sugar content of the liquid during the fermentation process, a custom-designed ceramic air-diffuser pump filtered air under a regulated micro-oxygenated environment, aerating the wine and thus softening the tannins. Meanwhile an ultrasonic transducer, positioned directly underneath the chamber, resonates effectively speeding up the flavour development of the wine. Each of these components, and others, are connected to an Arduino microcontroller that ensures the Miracle Machine is doing its job of making a fine wine of your creation in just a matter of days.”
Because the wine will be produced and bottled under air, not an inert gas, it will only keep for 1–2 weeks. However, the wine will be made to taste pre-aged so there’s no need to age it any further.
