Spanish Company Makes Wine Under Water
A winery in Spain is aging its wine in a new way — by putting it under water for a year and a half.
Crusoe Treasure calls itself the world's first underwater winery. Bottles of its wine are put 20 meters deep in the Cantabrian Sea off northern Spain. There they spend up to 18 months aging.
Borja Saracho, the winery's founder, was inspired by stories of ships like the Jönköping, which sank in the Baltic Sea in 1916. The Swedish ship was carrying thousands of bottles of champagne when it sank.
When the bottles were raised from the sea in 1998, it was found that, after aging more than 80 years under water, the champagne tasted fantastic.
The ocean can be good for aging wine because it keeps out things like light and heat. The dark, cool water helps the wine age more slowly and develop a better flavor.
There has been a lot of interest in underwater wines since 2010, when 168 bottles of 170-year-old champagne were found in a ship that had sunk off the coast of Finland.
The champagne was tested by scientists and then tasted by wine experts. At first the experts described the flavor as "cheesy" and like "wet hair." But then they said it tasted much better once it had been swirled in the glass.
Saracho started Crusoe Treasure in 2013. The company's wine starts from about $70 online. You can also buy two bottles together — one aged on land, one under water — to compare the flavors.
