168 champagne bottles had been discovered from a shipwreck by a team of divers at the bottom of Baltic Sea back in 2010.
The divers opened and tasted it after bringing it back to the surface realizing they had been drinking champagne which is probably more than a century old.
A team of scientists have wanted to understand what the contents in the bottle were and how different it is from the champagnes that we have today. The last five years have been spent on testing the drink to figure out its chemical composition and discovering what it tastes like. It was found that the champagne had been produced in the 19th century with taste very much similar to the ones available now.
Philippe Jeandet, a scientist at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, and his team at first thought that the 170 year old champagne may have a different chemical composition compared to the ones we have today, but after numerous studies and test it was found that they are much like the contemporary ones. The team has comprehensively discussed the details of their research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
The chemical composition of three different champagnes of the shipwreck had been tested and compared. Experts say that they were made somewhere between 1840 or 1841. The comparison of the old champagne had been made with three samples of Veuve Clicquot from 1955, 1988 and 2011.
The researchers did not have that many details of the sunken ship so this lack of information made it tougher for them to establish the origin and the age of the champagnes and the fact there were no labels on it made it even worse for them. Although, when they analyzed the engravings of the cork, they was found that the champagne had been produced by Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Juglar and Heidsieck.
Since the bottles had been resting on the bottom of the sea for longer than 170 years, the champagne had been in impeccable conditions for storage, surrounded in complete darkness with an optimal temperature of 2 to 4 degrees.
Researchers realized after assessing the champagnes that it had additional sugar in it compared to the modern day ones, which reflects the taste of the Europeans pattern of champagnes of that era.
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Benzamin H
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