Jonathan Kolber discusses Companies developing Scent-based technology, and the possibilites of such technology in general.

[A Note From James Boric:

Below, Jonathan shares the latest breakthrough he’s keeping an eye on. It could soon completely alter the wine industry. But not long after that, it could change everything from how we detect heart attacks to how we pick up dates! Enjoy…]

It’s rare that a technology stretches my credulity. I’ve simply seen too many things become real in the past few years that had looked like science fiction.

His ultimate intent is to create the same sorts of computerized systems with sensors and governors (switches that control activity in a system to keep a variable within acceptable parameters) used in industrial manufacturing processes.

Key to this is the concept that flavor components can be isolated and quantified, much like active ingredients are isolated from wild plants to derive new pharmaceutical drugs. Scientists already know how to do this. What’s new is the notion of modeling their appropriate ratios to determine effect on the human palate.

Under Biegler’s vision, wine would become a standardized industrial product with many thousands of variations. While fermentation is not the only factor of significance, mastering it is exceptionally difficult and will take winemaking a significant distance from art to industry.

I’m not a wine collector, but if I were, I’d cease buying wine as investment and restrict my purchases to bottles I intend to drink.

Assuming this works, it has some significant implications beyond just wine.

With its enormous variety of smells and flavors, wine is one of the most sophisticated sensory experiences known to man. That’s why a bottle of old Lafitte Rothschild can cost thousands of times as much as an ordinary bottle of varietal.

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New kinds of medical devices will be able to monitor trace chemicals in the breath. For example, distinctive trace chemicals enter the breath when the body has a heart attack. Someone who has previously had a heart attack may be equipped with such a device to help distinguish a second heart attack from mere indigestion.

It’s easy to envision The Sharper Image selling devices such as these circa 2012. In addition, the potential applications for law enforcement and espionage are myriad.

Technological breakthroughs usually come with some unintended consequences. In many cases, those unintended consequences lead to exciting technology applications that get licensed into early-stage companies. We’ll be watching for them.

To your profitable future,

Jonathan Kolber

January 11, 2006

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