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This 2000-Year-Old Wine Is Still Pourable. But You Don’t Want to Drink It
(www.scientificamerican.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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How is it even a wine at this point? Doesn't it naturally become vinegar after long enough?
When it oxidizes yes iirc. No or ultra low oxygen content means that process is greatly delayed.
Oxidization is not the process that turns wine into vinegar, it is a secondary fermentation by bacteria that does it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_vinegar
Buddy....
That means it's an aerobic bacterial process (aerobic - operating in the presence of air, or specifically oxygen in this case). Not oxidation, which is specifically the interaction of oxygen interactions with the molecule to bond preferentially over the existing bonds, "rusting" them in common parlance.
It does both as it says in your source boss.
"My" source?
The source provided, I didn't read username.
Ok. But also - no it doesn't.
"The mother acetifies the wine into vinegar."
Not oxidises. Acetic acid is vinegar, formed from wine by the aerobic action of bacteria.
The aerobic action of the bacteria is oxidative.
They’re not separate processes.
Well they are, Gram positive bacteria can be oxidative or fermentive and wine has both in the same solution working together to make wine go bad in the presence of oxygen.
The answer was accurate and simple, why it was necessary to get so deep into the weeds I do not know.
You have to read the sources sources boss.
Wine both oxidizes and ferments and both processes play off each other.
The question was how is it not bad/vinegar the answer to both is a reduced oxygen environment.
Or an environment without bacteria. I don't think the wine will 'oxidize' without the bacteria, correct?
I'm not sure about that one too be honest, I imagine over time there's probably a different mechanism for it but I'm not familiar enough to say.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid
Looks like you can create acedic acid from alcohol but you need a catalyst and carbon monoxide, not oxygen.