In 2010 , divers found a goodly amount of alcohol — include 168 feeding bottle of 170 - year - previous bubbly — tuck away in a shipwreck on the bottom of the Baltic Sea . Two milliliters made it to the University of Reims Champagne - Ardenne in France , where biochemist Philippe Jeandet and his colleagues analyzed it and reported their findings in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
Markings on the bottle dated the booze , but also told investigators where it came from . The unusually former drink originated from three champagne houses : Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin , Heidsieck and Juglar . The former two still operate today .
Jeandet and his team found important clues in the Champagne-Ardenne ’s ingredients . According toNature.com , the shipwreck ’s location — just off the Finnish Åland archipelago — might suggest that the consignment was head to Russia , but the bottles contained 300 gram of sugar per liter , one-half of what Russians were normally known to drink . alternatively , it is theorized that the dough was go to Germany , where the civilians savour a more modestly sweet drink . Regardless , this would be much fresh than today ’s champagne , which generally only has about 10 gramme of loot per liter .
The bottles also had high denseness of atomic number 26 and copper than contemporary champagne , but a downcast per centum of inebriant . Presence of woodwind tannin suggested that the bubbly was fermented in wooden barrels . The team also found low levels of acetic acid , which imply it had not spoiled .
In 2011 , two of these bottles were auctioned off , one for a staggering € 30,000 ( then around $ 44,000 ) . The money was given to fund marine archaeology learnedness . Eleven more were sold the following year , with the rest being store in Åland .
So what did this ancient strong drink try like ? The paper explains :
luckily , when given fourth dimension to breathe , the bubbly ’s taste ameliorate . taste tester used words like “ grill , ” “ gamey , ” “ smoky , ” and “ leathery ” to describe the aromas .
Thanks to glowering and cold atmospheric condition , the ocean attend to as an underwater wine cellar and kept the alcohol in splendid condition . “ The designation of very specific feel and aroma chemical compound points to a very complex mathematical product , like modern champagne , albeit having been altered slightly , ” Patrick McGovern , a biomolecular archeologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia , order . “ believe that these champagne had been ‘ aged underwater ’ for 170 year , they were amazingly well preserved . ”
In an effort to try out how bubbly age underwater , 350 bottle of a unexampled vintage have been placed in the water . Every few years , tasters will unearth a bottle and compare it against an exact reproduction stored above ground to see how different conditions can regard the taste .
[ h / t : Nature.com , Gizmodo.com ]
