Tasting Notes on 200-Year Old Champagne Salvaged From Baltic
Remember the Finnish divers who recently discovered several crates of champagne and beer from a sunken ship that had been at the bottom of the Baltic Sea for nearly two centuries?
Well....turns out that it tasted pretty good.
The divers first discovered the champagne was drinkable when changing pressures caused the cork to pop off one of the bottles, and one diver decided to drink. He expected to taste seawater that had seeped into the bottle over the last 200 years, but was shocked to discover the wine still tasted fine.
The divers all had some of the ancient wine, and then resealed the wine and brought it to wine expert Ella Grussner Cromwell-Morgan. Here's how she described it: "Despite the fact that it was so amazingly old, there was a freshness to the wine. It wasn't debilitated in any way. Rather, it had a clear acidity which reinforced the sweetness. Finally, a very clear taste of having been stored in oak casks."
Other descriptions that came out of a recent official tasting range from "lime blossoms, coffee, chanterelles" to " yeast, honey and...a hint of manure." Ha!
The champagne was definitely significantly sweeter than what we're used to today. While a modern bottle has about 9 grams of sugar, a typical bottle in the 1830s had 100 grams of sugar.
The divers discovered the wreck just south of Aaland, a Finland-controlled archipelago of some 6,500 small islands in the Baltic Sea. Inside the sunken schooner, they found 168 bottles of champagne and an undisclosed amount of bottles of beer. The ship itself likely dates back to the second quarter of the 19th century, making its cargo almost certainly the oldest alcoholic drinks in existence. By comparison, the oldest wines in private hands are only thought to date back to the very end of the 1800s.
And what about the beer? It was as well-preserved as the wine. When one of the bottles cracked open on board their ship, the divers saw the liquid froth up just like a new beer would, indicating the yeast was somehow still alive.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John F.C. Taylor Dec 4th 2010 7:45AM
Seems to me that if properly sealed, the booze would survive. I bet the temperature on the floor of the Baltic had something to do with it too.
Christopher Dec 4th 2010 9:28PM
Um... the foaming is because CO2 in solution is coming out when the pressure drops after the bottle is opened. The yeast is long dead... the alcohol from the seconary fermentation after bottling kills it off.
Also, does anyone else find it interesting that exactly one bottle of each bevarage happened to pop open on board the salvage ship on its way in? Hmmmm.
jardemiel Dec 5th 2010 4:02PM
Yes, you are right! and YEAH, those lucky ba*tards!!
joel rambaud Dec 4th 2010 11:49AM
I had the chance to drink a hundred year old champagne , unlike the one found off the coast of Finland our was stored in the cellar of La Reserve in Lissieu France a Castle Hotel now closed , unlike the one from Finland there was very little bubble if any , the color had changed as well , it was very drinkable and enjoyable but did not even compare to any Champagne of today.
We had more success with Cognac pre dating the French revolution .An absolutely divine experience {forget cocaine majiruana ectazy}
One bottle less for the Owner to drink , Something that immediately earned us grounding , AND 18 hours work shift for months without a day off , and every time He was saying You like my Cognac {yo littles*%^*@!} those were the real goods old days ,Just put it in perspective a bunch of apprentice drinking Cognac that could cost as much as a house , but then that was 1968 . Joel
robin egg blue Dec 4th 2010 1:27PM
okay by me
robin egg blue Dec 4th 2010 1:24PM
ok
HALLOWKING Dec 5th 2010 2:34PM
love your storys joel...i would like to read some more... hit me up at hallowking at aol dot com
wlh1923 Dec 5th 2010 3:33PM
I'd love to taste some of the century old Scotch that was found in Antartica under the floorboards of an old shack about two years ago.
jnzcram Dec 5th 2010 4:30PM
I opened a 200 year bottle of champagne about a week ago and it tasted like it was 200 years old.
twopottersinlove Dec 5th 2010 5:35PM
I bottle my own homemade wine & I can tell you, the temperature @ the bottom of the ocean probably preserved this beverage pretty nicely, then when coming to the surface, the change in temperature can cause the cork to blow out; I've had that happen thru personal experience..but I would have really liked to taste that beverage of 200 years old, would have been interesting. I really like my homemade wine much better than expected and much better than some I have purchased at the store...I have 20 gallons that are clearing now and I am getting close to bottling. Botttoms up!
twopottersinlove Dec 5th 2010 5:36PM
I bottle my own homemade wine & I can tell you, the temperature @ the
bottom of the ocean probably preserved this beverage pretty nicely,
then when coming to the surface, the change in temperature can cause
the cork to blow out; I've had that happen thru personal
experience..but I would have really liked to taste that beverage of
200 years old, would have been interesting. I really like my homemade
wine much better than expected and much better than some I have
purchased at the store...I have 20 gallons that are clearing now and I
am getting close to bottling. Botttoms up!