Science And Technology

Change is afoot in the wine-making industry. Traditional wine-makers in Europe are horrified by the transformation by science and technology of the ancient art of making wine. Vintners in Spain, and particularly France, have shunned the new technology, and it has been to their detriment. Some people think that the changes that have come about because of science are a bad thing because they sometimes have increased yield at the expense of quality. Other people think that these traditionalists are snobby and worried that high-quality, complex wines will become cheaper. Good or bad, change is definitely here.

The entire industry is being changed by science; from irrigation to new corking systems, and from vine genetics to bacterial and disease control. Newer wine producing countries such as Australia and Chile that do use the new technology are becoming world class producers of quality wine. The rapidity with which they have done so can largely be attributed to science and technology.

Many parts of the older wine producing regions prohibit improvements in irrigation technology, and those improvements have perhaps been the single biggest factor in the success of New World wine producing countries. There are two new techniques. One is restricted deficit irrigation. This keeps vines under conditions of stress and gives growers control over grape size and quality. The other is drip irrigation. This requires a high investment in capital but it is far more efficient than traditional flood irrigation. Progress in understanding vine stress and its relationship to wine composition, as well as in being able to manage this, has helped many New World wine regions to use irrigation intelligently to maximize the quality of their wines.

James Lapsley, a wine economist at the University of California at Davis, commented “As we look at wine more as something that is produced, rather than as a unique product from a particular place, this also allows us to think of ways to increase the level of flavor or speed up aging.” Roger Boulton, who is a professor of enology and chemical engineering also at the University of California at Davis, had this to say: “Scientific research is helping to clarify the specific chemistries of grape flavors and aromas, microbial byproducts and their sensory aspects, from the facts, confusion and myths that were in place,”

Scientists have found that micro-oxygenation, for example, gives to wine stored in stainless steel a flavor that is reminiscent of that of wine aged in barrels. Another way to quickly and easily add complex flavor to a wine is to add oak chips to the wine and analyze the amount of oak flavor.

Change, driven by science is inevitable even in processes like winemaking that have been considered as more of an art. People are always looking for a better way to get more consistently higher quality product for a cheaper price. The high quality of wines produced by regions that have been more enthusiastic about improvements in science and technology suggests that these changes are a good thing.

Over the many years we humans have been alive many great things have been achieved. As a species we have used our brain not our strength to over power our struggles and obstacles. We have come so far since from our humble caveman begins to the digitally intelligent people we are today.

I think there are few areas where we have really shined and bettered ourselves, which are: science, medicine and technology.

In the beginning Humans used tools to do daily activities like hunting and cooking. Tools were also used to create objects and machines. Machines, which have let us fly, entertain, travel, kill and save lives. Technology lets us do things Humans can’t do naturally but in science we learn how things work.

Science enables us as Humans to understand the world, why it does what it does and how does it. The knowledge of how things work helps us improve the world and avoid things that can be prevented. Machines can be enhanced and things can be created with the understanding of science and the world. The secrets of the body can also be understood therefore saving peoples lives and curing the once incurable.

Medicine is the other area where Humans have really improved. The knowledge of how drugs work and why we suffer diseased is vital in the modern day just as much as it was in medieval days. Illnesses that were once feared can be cured with a single tablet and bones that have broken can be fixed with a cast. When you combine science and technology to medicine, that is when you fully understand how far we have come as humans. We now have medical equipment that can see inside the body, we have machines that can monitor the heart and see what is wrong with the patient and many more that do wondrous things each day.

With the digital age upon us there will be new advances in all these fields and many new machines will be created and knowledge of the world will grow ever greater.