Château Haut-Bailly: the first Graves in space?

Château Haut-Bailly may become the first Graves to be enjoyed in space after the estate puts its name to a wine bottle designed for use in zero-gravity.

Octave de Gaulle’s ‘Civilizing Space’ project exhibition at Bordeaux’s Museum of Decorative Arts and Design. The circular bottle of Haut-Bailly can be seen in the bottom right of the picture

The circular bottle was created by design student Octave de Gaulle as part of his Civilizing Space project, which is being exhibited at Bordeaux’s Museum of Decorative Arts and Design.

The bottle, which carries a specially made Haut-Bailly label, is one of a range of designs de Gaulle has created to “enable people to take a bit of their earthly culture into the skies”, the designer told Le Pan.

The bottle is designed to be connected to a drinking utensil that resembles a conductor’s baton with a circular grip attached.

Octave de Gaulle’s ‘space bottle’ of Haut-Bailly (Photo: Twitter)

Château Haut-Bailly came to be involved in the project as a result of being a patron of the museum.

“With over 70 years of space conquest we have almost made space travel something banal, with our success in settling research laboratories in orbit and even walking on the Moon,” Veronique Sanders, general manager of Haut-Bailly, said.

“Yet the ships taking men to space were conceived as survival capsules. They are austere and functional, addressing merely our physiological needs.

“In 2013, Octave de Gaulle became interested in objects and environments that follow humans into space. This is why he decided to create his own space program, whose goal is to find relevant solutions to life in space.

“Alcohol can be a remarkable vector of conviviality,” Sanders added, “but a huge problem as well. When it comes to wine, in space, with the weightlessness, liquids make spheres and do not flow.

“Currently spacemen drink from little bags equipped with straws and aspire liquid. This solution fits to drink water but seems far from the terrestrial rituals and friendliness of wine tasting that Octave de Gaulle is hoping to take into space.

“Weightlessness does not only render objects weightless. It also reveals forces that are largely inhibited by gravity effect on Earth. In space, liquids tend to gather into spheres to minimise their surface in contact with air.

“Octave de Gaulle’s bottle guarantees that wine moves towards the cork and never remains stuck in some part of the shape. The bottle is toroidal – in the shape of a ring. The object can then be stored and filled flat on Earth, while in space it will be easy to grab, handle and carry it around one’s arm or to hook with a strap.

“For this first travel in space, Octave de Gaulle wanted a reference wine, a timeless wine able to travel in space without any look or taste distortion.

“He chose Château Haut-Bailly for this first bottle in history. This choice is no coincidence. The cultural methods, respectful of nature and the environment, the history transcending terroirs, the men who brought their savoir-faire, the vintages – all of this explains Haut-Bailly, an exceptional wine for an exceptional trip.

Booze in space

While the Léognan estate may lay claim to being the first bottle created for space travel, it is not the first Bordeaux to have a space connection. A bottle of Château Lynch-Bages 1975 Pauillac actually made it beyond the earth’s atmosphere aboard Nasa’s STS-51-G Discovery shuttle in 1985.

Neither is this the first time wine has been considered as a space-travel libation.

In the 1970s, following extensive research on ways to improve astronauts’ dining experience, Nasa’s Charles Bourland considered introducing cream Sherry as part of their space rations. Bourland shared his recipes and reminiscences in his book The Astronaut’s Cookbook.

Following consultation with professors at the University of California, Davis, Sherry was chosen because its natural stability would make it easier to be repackaged for space journeys.

Paul Masson California Rare Cream Sherry was chosen following a taste test of Sherries, and was ordered for the 70s Skylab mission.

However the Sherry received a lukewarm response from Nasa astronauts preparing for the mission. Indeed, it was reported that when the drink was tested prior to the Skylab mission on Nasa’s special low-gravity ‘Vomit Comet’ aeroplane, the smell made several astronauts nauseous.

Plans to take the Sherry into space were subsequently dropped.

Other drinks to have entered the space age include Scotch whisky. The drinks business reported last year how a vial of Ardbeg had returned to earth after three years in orbit.

The vial of un-matured malt whisky containing particles of charred oak was blasted up to the International Space Station in 2011 as part of an experiment to discover whether there were any differences in the ageing process between whiskies aged in space and those matured on earth.

Octave de Gaulle’s Civilizing Space exhibition continues at Bordeaux’s Museum of Decorative Arts and Design until April 10.