Mozart can make wine taste better?

It seems so! At least that’s what an Austrian inventor is claiming and despite being scoffed at by scientists, vineyards around the world are adopting the idea. Read on for more.

At least that’s what an Austrian inventor is claiming and despite being scoffed at by scientists, vineyards around the world are adopting the idea.



Markus Bachmann has invented a special speaker that exposes fermenting grape juice to classical, jazz or electronic tunes, which he claims, influence the maturing process and produce a better-tasting wine.



The idea hasn’t been taken too well by scientists, who call them at best harmless, at worst cynical marketing ploys.

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Werner Gruber, a University of Vienna physicist and member of a group known as the Science Busters, which aims to debunk false scientific claims, rejected Mr Bachmann''s idea as "rubbish".



"Yeast, fungi, don't have opinions. They really don't care if AC/DC, Madonna or Mozart is played to them," the Independent quoted him as saying.



But Bachmann doesn’t care and is highly protective of his sound-infusing gadget, refusing to have the small, baby blue, UFO-shaped object filmed or photographed.



He calls his speaker a "swimming saucer" and will only say that it weighs 1.4kg (3.1lbs) and is inserted into the fermenting grape juice to stimulate the yeast.



"The wines get more fruity, they get mature earlier," he said in a recent interview. "All the flavour stand alone much better."



According to him, the sound waves from his speaker move yeast particles around, causing them to eat greater amounts of sugar, resulting in a wine that has a low sugar content.

"There's an absolute scientific basis for it," he said.

Some drinks producers such as Hector Vasquez of the Mexican Los Danzantes distillery produces mezcal, an alcoholic drink made from maguey plants, to both classical and folk tunes.

"I can't promise that this method, that these beliefs, work, but we're turning it into a good method, and I''m sure that in the three years we have been doing it, it hasn''t hurt the fermentation process," he said.