Martian wine
Designed by Carlos Monleon Gendall
Description of chapter
Martian Wine (part of the Martian Terroir project) portrays the endeavour of an individual making wine as if it were grown and made on Mars. This addition to the gastronomic selection onboard the craft speaks to the capabilites that are possible to grow grape vines on mars (under specific conditions) and ferment wine throught a process called Carbonic Marceration where grapes are forced under CO2 pressure to ferment from the inside out.
The aim was to recreate the terroir - the geophysical characteristics of a place such as soil, climate and biodiversity which can be tasted in products such as wine- based on the data available on Mars. The process of constructing this terroir consists of a series of simulations of Martian conditions -light cycles, light composition, soil, and clay- that are used as the base for speculations about the taste and aroma that such a wine might have.
The project is inspired by both the aesthetics of remote sensing -some of the most advanced technologies on earth that bring us images and data from remote corners of the galaxy; and by the knowhow of wine-making some of the oldest crafts involved in wine-making -which are still used today in remote parts of the world.
At a time of much talk about sending humans to live on Mars, this project aims to raise questions such as how would everyday products taste on other planets, which new categories would we need to create for those sensations and what skills and crafts would these pioneering humans have to learn to survive off the terrestrial grid.