Scientists have conducted a taste test of Champagne unlike anything done before, since the bubbly at hand had spent 170 years at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
In 2010, divers recovered 168 bottles of Champagne from a shipwreck in the Baltic off Finland, dated to the early 1800s through engravings found on the bottle corks.
Two bottles were auctioned off in 2011, with one bottle bringing $44,000, which was then donated to fund marine archaeology scholarships by the government of the Finnish Aland archipelago, where the find had been made.
In a study led by Philippe Jeandet, a professor of food biochemistry at the University of Reims in France, the chemical composition of the wine from the shipwreck has been compared to that of modern Champagne.
Jeandet's lab was given just 2 milliliters of the bubbly for studies; after the chemical analysis Jeandet himself sampled some for taste. Well, one droplet from a microsyringe, that is.
The biggest difference between the recovered wine and modern-day Champagne was that the 170-year-old vintage contained a lot more sugar; around 20 ounces per gallon compared to an average one-ounce per gallon these days.
That was in keeping with people's taste nearly two centuries ago, Jeandet says, when sugar was even added to wine consumed at dinner.
The sugar content suggests the intended destination of the wine could have been Germany, where people at the time favored moderately sweet wine, he says.
The ancient wine also contained more minerals, including copper, iron and salt, than modern versions, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The chemical analysis also mirrored the taste, described by wine-tasting experts as "grilled, spicy, smoky and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes."
The conditions on the seafloor where the Champagne was found, in particular the near constant 35 degrees to 39 degrees Fahrenheit temperature and the absence of sunlight at 160 feet deep, probably accounts for the remarkable preservation of the beverage, experts say, allowing it to retain at least some degree of its original tastes and aroma.
"The identification of very specific flavor and aroma compounds points to a very complex product, like modern Champagne, albeit having been altered somewhat," says Patrick McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Considering that these Champagnes had been 'aged underwater' for 170 years, they were amazingly well-preserved."
