Back in July, a shipwreck discovered off the Aland Islands in the cold, dark Baltic Sea yielded several 230-year-old bottles of champagne from the famous French winery Veuve Clicquot and a long-forgotten vinyard called Juglar. Well, if you’ve ever wondered what 200-year-old wine might taste like, two of the rare 230-year-old bottles recovered from the shipwreck were recently opened and sampled by master sommelier Richard Juhlin.
According to those lucky enough to sample the beverage, the wine had lost most of its fizz (believed to have escaped during the pressure changes when the divers brought them to the surface), but still had most of its original flavor and sweetness intact. In fact, thanks to the cold temperature and high pressure of life underwater, it is believed that the champagne tastes the same as it did the day it was bottled, with notes of lime blossom, coffee, and chanterelles.
“It’s like a time machine. We think it’s exceptional that its not only drinkable but that it still has some fizz, after 200 years,” said Veuve Clicquot spokesman Stephane Gerschel. In the old days, champagne was much sweeter than it is today, and even then sometimes it was adulterated to make it even more cloying, said Gerschel. “In Russia, the trend was to serve Champagne with a spoonful of sugar.”
Tags: 200-year-old champagne, champagne lost in a shipwreck, tasting 200-year-old champagne, Aland Islands, Baltic Sea, champagne recovered from shipwreck, Juglar, Veuve Clicquot, lost champagne discovered, Richard Juhlin
