Different Treasure-Divers find Rare Champagne

[crzhors]

Interesting Article From Reuters..

A group of divers exploring a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea have found bottles containing what is thought to be the oldest drinkable champagne in the world, made in the late 18th century.

"I picked up one champagne bottle just so we could find the age of the wreck, because we didn't find any name or any details that would have told us the name of the ship," diver Christian Ekstrom from Aland said Saturday.

Ekstrom and his Swedish diving colleagues opened the bottle and tasted the contents.

"It was fantastic... it had a very sweet taste, you could taste oak and it had a very strong tobacco smell. And there were very small bubbles," he said.

Early Veuve Clicquot
Experts said the shape of the bottle showed it was from the late 18th century, and the bottle and its contents have been sent to champagne specialists in France to be analyzed.

"We are 98 percent sure that it is Veuve Clicquot champagne and that it was probably (made) between 1772 (the year the business was established) and 1785," Ekstrom said, adding that the cargo vessel was probably sailing to St Petersburg, then the capital of Russia.

He said they had found the wine on their first dive and did not yet know how many bottles the wreck contained or what other cargo it carried.

The current title of the world's oldest champagne is held by Perrier-Jouet, which has two bottles from 1825.

Richard Juhlin, a Swedish champagne specialist, told the newspaper Alandstidningen he believed the champagne was Veuve Clicquot and said that if it was from the late 18th century, it could cost around 500,000 Swedish crowns ($68,000) a bottle.

Because the wreck lies off Aland, an autonomous part of Finland, the local authorities will decide what will be done with the wreck — and the champagne.

[BuckleBoy]

Must be nice to crack a $68,000 bottle of champagne to celebrate...

[Darren in NC]

It tasted fantastic? I guess it's been awhile since I had oak and tobacco champagne at 68k a bottle...

Very cool find nonetheless.

[Trond]

Special find.

[Bum Luck]

Must be nice to crack a $68,000 bottle of champagne to celebrate...

I'd have had second thoughts a few hours later........................

[itmaiden]

Ditto ! And I would have grabbed more than one, and then had it analyzed before consuming it. Could have contained poison !

Could have stuck it in the onboard wine cooler and if caught with more than one bottle, claimed it was "private stock" !

itmaiden

Must be nice to crack a $68,000 bottle of champagne to celebrate...

I'd have had second thoughts a few hours later........................

[Salvor6]

Because the wreck lies off Aland, an autonomous part of Finland, the local authorities will decide what will be done with the wreck — and the champagne.

Of course you know what will be done. The local authorities will confiscate everything and ban further diving on the wreck.