Space X Brings Back Bourdeaux Wine After A Year of Out-of-This World Wine Aging

It's wine o'clock, time to bid Adieu! Space X has finally put an end to the space journey of 12 bottles of French Bordeaux wine and hundreds of fragments of grapevines roaming around the space for an entire year. The International Space Station has brought back these winery goods last Tuesday back to Earth after an Out-of-This world Aging process.

As reported by Irish Examiner, the twelve bottles of wine were delivered to space last November 2019 through a Northrop Grumman supply ship. In addition, 320 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon vine fragments, also known as canes in the grape-growing industry, were delivered by SpaceX last March.

So far, only SpaceX is the shipper that is capable of returning items from space back to Earth fully intact. Other cargo capsules have the possibility of burning the shipments when entering back to the Earth's atmosphere. In SpaceX's tweet below, the cargo shipping has been confirmed to come back to Earth.

Bordeaux Wine Space Aging Process

HuffPost notes that the 12 bottles of carefully pressed wine have been orbiting the lab in space with extra precaution and care. Each bottle is settled inside a steel barrel to avoid breaking or leaking. It has remained corked while circling in the space. It was the idea of Space Cargo Unlimited, a Luxembourg start-up to put the wine in space and allow it to age for up to an entire year. For some, it was a ridiculous idea, but to many, it was brilliant and innovative. As SpaceX has delivered the well-aged wines back to Earth, they will still have to settle down for almost a month. Thus, none of these bottles will be opened for tasting up until February. By the time that the wine bottles are ready, the company will open a bottle or two for the first-ever inter-galactic wine tasting in Bordeaux where some of France's top connoisseurs and experts will be there to take part and witness the event. After the launching event, several months of chemical testing and research will succeed. Researchers and wine experts are very interested in seeing how the elements, temperature, and environment in space has changed the wine's sedimentation and bubbles.

Bordeaux Wine Space Aging: Road to a More Innovative Agricultural Science Technology

As noted by Nicolas Gaume, the company's CEO and co-founder through NY Post, the main objective of the space wine experiment is to have innovations in agricultural science, although he admits that being able to taste a few sips from space-aged wine indeed makes him lucky. "Our goal is to tackle the solution of how we're going to have an agriculture tomorrow that is both organic and healthy and able to feed humanity, and we think space has the key."

Because of climate change, agricultural products and resources such as grapes and other fruits will have to adapt to harsher environments and conditions.

According to him, the goal of the experiment done by Space Cargo Unlimited is to see and learn how subjecting agricultural products in extreme environments, lack of gravity and weightlessness can affect the plants. As a result, they will be able to develop technology that will make plants on Earth more resilient to extreme conditions that climate change may bring.

As an added benefit, he also notes that being able to survive agricultural produce in space means Mars and moon explorers may have a taste of the pleasures we enjoy on Earth while they are on their journey.

"Being French, it's part of life to have some good food and good wine.", he adds.

Private investors and other partners have made the experiment possible. According to Mr. Gaume it was through their efforts that a cutting-edge discovery for the wine industry has been made. When asked about the project's cost, he declined to provide further details.

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Written by Nikki Delgado