Bottom of the Sea

AS A RESULT OF A FEW SUCCESSFUL SALVAGE OPERATIONS IN RECENT YEARS, WE HAVE SEEN A NUMBER OF WINE PRODUCERS AROUND THE GLOBE TRY THEIR HAND AT AGEING WINES UNDER THE SEAS. A NEAT GIMMICK, BUT IS IT ANYTHING MORE?

IN 2010, 168 BOTTLES WERE DISCOVERED on the floor of the Baltic Sea off Finland in a shipwreck which occurred 170 years earlier. The bottles were from the House of Veuve Clicquot, in its earlier incarnation. A few reached auction houses, bringing prices of over US$150,000 a bottle; no wonder Veuve Clicquot is one of the producers keen to experiment with undersea maturation.

These bottles were far sweeter than is common today (traces of arsenic were also discovered upon scientific analysis – presumed to be from attempts to control pests in the vineyard), but they had almost completely lost all their fizz.

These underwater Champagnes kicked off a keen interest in wines from wrecks, though nothing could have been further from the intention of the Houses at the time.

The first of these salvaged wines dates back over 100 years, to the 1907 vintage. The Champagne, the Heidsieck Monopole “Gout Americain” 1907, would probably be nothing more than a footnote in history if not for a series of remarkable events. A large quantity of it, estimated at 3,000 bottles, plus various other wines and spirits including 10,000 gallons of Cognac and 17 barrels of Burgundy (neither of which survived their time in the sea), was destined for St Petersburg in Russia, purchased for Czar Nikolai’s Imperial Army. The Czar was a loyal customer of Heidsieck at the time, which was popular across the continent.

The Champagne was being transported by the Swedish 20-metre schooner, “Jönköping”, which was on its tenth trip to Russia that year, suggesting that smuggling, rather than legitimate trade, may have been its primary occupation. In November of 1916, the “Jönköping” was sunk off the coast of Finland by the German U-boat, U-22. The actual sinking was all a bit of a comedy of errors – reports suggest that the schooner originally thought the U-boat was an island and made no attempt to flee. The U-boat was there because the captain was apparently the only German submarine commander in history to sink another U-boat, though doing so was recorded as an accident at the time (worse was that the U-boat sunk by Captain Bruno Hoppe of U-22 was commanded by his best friend from his childhood). Captain Hoppe did remove the crew of the “Jönköping” from the vessel before it was sunk – the only other items saved from the doomed ship were a few bottles grabbed by German sailors before the rest made their way to the briny depths of the sea.

Whether a comedy or not, the event could hardly have put the Champagne in a safer place, or one better suited for long term storage. More than 60 metres below the surface, it was protected from everyone, until it was discovered by a salvage team in 1998. The wines enjoyed a temperature which was a constant 0 to 4°C (depending who one believes, but, in any event, low and hardly ever varying); it was permanently dark; they were never disturbed and in an environment of low salinity at that depth; and happened to be exactly where the bottles needed to be for the water pressure to balance the pressure within, to ensure the corks never moved. No wonder present-day treasure hunters are trying to replicate the conditions to store their own wines. It did mean that labels and wire capsules were destroyed, but there was plenty of evidence remaining to confirm the wine’s identity.

If ever a Champagne was cursed, the Heidsieck Monopole “Gout Americain” 1907 must have been it. This was also the Champagne on the Titanic for its one and only voyage!

The salvage team brought up approximately 2,500 bottles (the exact quantity is a bit of a mystery) – an extraordinary find. Many went to various auction houses where they were eagerly snapped up by everyone from history buffs to wine collectors, at ever-increasing prices. The reference to ‘Gout Americain’ (the American taste), suggests it had been made in a slightly sweeter style than usual, even for those days. It is believed to have had anywhere from 100 to 165 grams/litre sugar in it – a very sweet wine indeed. No doubt this helped the wine survive, even thrive, up until today. Reports from early tastings were of how youthful the wine was, obviously plenty of maturity, but alive and often fresh, with a lively mousse.

I was fortunate in having the opportunity to try two of them, not long after they hit the market, at a dinner in Brisbane to celebrate the wines. One was a lovely old, mature, complex wine; almost regal with an array of nutty aromas, truffles and even a curious but pleasant note of French onion soup. The other remains forever etched in my memory – on opening, it foamed up and out of the bottle as though it had been bottled just the day before. Astonishing. A third bottle, thanks to the kindness of a good friend who just happened to turn up to dinner with it recently (would that were a common event!), was again a lovely, complex, quite developed wine; not as fresh as the other two, but extraordinary given it was over a century old.

Who said Champagne can’t age! ❧

WORDS KEN GARGETT