Nitrogen balls in wine bottles

[Robert Lauriston]

Just followed a link on the "Mollydooker shake" in another topic:

http://www.mollydookerwines.com/web/m...

Sounds like a variation on the technology used in canned Guinness "draft." Is anyone else using that? Very strange idea.

[Gussie Finknottle]

Read it again, Robert.

It does not say there is a nitrogen ball. There is no similarity with Guiness technology.

All Mollydooker do is what virtually every other winery on the planet does, which is to 'sparge' the bottles on the filling line with an inert gas (usually nitrogen) to replace oxygen.

As for the 'shake' --- I looked in vain for a date of 1 April on the item.

[Frodnesor]

That's right - no capsule, just a layer of inert nitrogen before bottling. But shaking it makes the "flavor ball become round again"! That's always been my problem with the Boxer - the flavor ball wasn't round enough.

There seems to be more than a fair bit of hokum on the Mollydooker website. How about this bit about the "Marquis Fruit Weight"(TM)? (TM!!!)

http://www.mollydookerwines.com/web/a...

Possibly the oddest bit: "It is measured by the percentage of your palate that the fruit flavour can be found before you taste any of the tannin or acid in the wine." And that leads to a well-integrated, balanced wine, how? Oh, we're talking about Mollydooker - never mind.

[Cookiefiend]

You're supposed to shake the bottle?

[Robert Lauriston]

Ah, now I get it.

Seems like a stupid gimmick.

[Midlife]

I've heard of double decanting, decanting from height, using decanting funnels that have several holes near a closed end (so the wine comes out the sides), decantering funnels that have the wine spiral around, and even some seemingly crackpot suggestions that a blender be used. Mollydooker was the first I saw that recommended vigorous shaking of a partially emptied bottle. I think it's just a gimmicky take on super-oxygenation of wine to get it to open up, but there is a reason for it.. If you've tasted Mollydooker wines, they're mostly all big fruit bombs that do seem to benefit from 'the shake'.

[RicRios]

I love the idea of a wine with big flavor balls!

[Frodnesor]

I can pretty much guarantee you that the next wine tasting I'm at, I will find an opportunity to comment that "This wine has big round flavor balls."

[RicRios]

Or even better: "this feminine wine has big round flavor balls."

[Frodnesor]

Good one. I've been known to throw out a "fruity, yet masculine" just to see if anyone's paying attention. Should have all sorts of new material now that I know about "flavor balls."

[Bill Hunt]

Isn't there a motion picture opening about now, "Balls of Flavor... " or something like that? Maybe it'll be a new "Sideways!"

Hunt

[Midlife]

H--m-m-m...... Christopher Walken is playing a Chinese warlordesque character in a new comedy called "Balls of Fury" but I don't think it's about wine. It's about table tennis (ping pong, for the less interested). Of course, we could always bring back Jerry Lee Lewis.

[Bill Hunt]

Oops, must be my mistake, or maybe the ink in the newspaper just bled - "Balls of Fury," huh? My bad...

Hunt