Hundreds of 170-year-old Champagne bottles were discovered by divers exploring an underwater shipwreck off Finland in what scientists said were conditions "perfect" for preserving wine all these years.
The bubbly hoard, 168 bottles strong, was found at a depth of 160 feet in a shipwreck off Finland's Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea, Live Science reported. Divers found the trove in 2010, but it wasn't until recently when scientists revealed how the Champagne's chemical makeup- along with its taste- compares to modern-day sparkling wine.
Wine experts lucky enough to taste the 170-year-old booze described it as "grilled, spicy, smoky and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes," according to Live Science.
Because the wine was at the bottom of the sea and kept at a constant temperature for so long, that created the "perfect slow-aging conditions for good evolution of wine," said Phillipe Jeandet, food biochemistry professor at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, Live Science reported.
The surprises didn't stop there. Once the wine was tested, Jeandet and his team learned it was made much the same way modern Champagne is.
But there was one major difference- the 170-year-old wine was loaded with 20 ounces of sugar per gallon, whereas contemporary Champagne contains about 1 ounce per gallon, Live Science reported. This suggests the old wine, likely made by well-known French Champagne house Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, was made to suit the sweet tooth people had at the time.
Researchers also found high concentrations of iron, likely caused by the type of container winemakers used at the time, and copper, believed to have come from the grapes being doused in copper sulfate to prevent fungus.
"After 170 years of deep-sea aging in close-to-perfect conditions, these sleeping Champagne bottles awoke to tell us a chapter of the story of winemaking," Jeandet said.
