Its manufacturers claim that a device they call The Perfect Sommelier can improve the quality of ordinary wine by subjecting it to weak magnetic fields.

Researchers at King’s College London in England decided to carry out a double-blind randomised cross-over trial to test the validity of their claim.

Four bottles of the same cheap red wine were obtained and two of these were magnetically treated.

A panel of 60 people then tasted samples of treated and untreated wines and asked to say which they preferred. Twenty-nine of them selected the treated ones and 31 of them chose the untreated.

The researchers consider therefore that they are unable to verify the claims made by its inventors for The Perfect Sommelier’s effectiveness.