200 year old bottle on display at LIWF

A Champagne bottle which spent more than 200 years buried at the bottom of the Baltic Sea will be on show at this year’s London International Wine Fair.

The Portuguese Cork Association (APCOR) has been granted permission to transport the historic bottle to the fair, where it will be displayed at the ViniPortugal stand, E10.

One of 168 bottles discovered off the coast of the Åland archipelago between Sweden and Finland last year, the contents were declared “very much alive and remarkably fresh” by Essi Avellan MW, editor of Finland’s Fine Champagne magazine, at a tasting held in September.

Carlos de Jesus, operations director of the Portuguese Cork Association, said: “The fact that the precious liquid in these bottles has been preserved at the bottom of the sea for more than 200 years stands as testimony to the unique ability of natural cork to protect the Champagnes and wines of this world”.

The bottle on show has since been recorked with another natural cork stopper, which was specially developed to match the exact specifications of the antique bottle.

The majority of the bottle trove, which is thought to have come from a ship which sunk in the early 1800s, remains underwater in a “secret and secure location”. However, the Åland government has announced a plan to auction some of the bottles this summer, which is expected to achieve record prices for Champagne.

Gabriel Savage, 17.05.2011