We gathered in a cramped room in the Zetter Townhouse in St John’s Square off the trendy Clerkenwell Road in north London for a briefing on Beefeater 24, Pern...
Unable to find any name or identifying marks on the sunken vessel, the divers brought one bottle to the surface as a means of dating the wreck. Experts in Sweden identified the shape of the bottle to be of a type from the late 18th century, concluding that it is likely to have been the product of champagne house Veuve Clicquot (founded in 1772) and made around the year 1785.
Contents of the bottle have been sent to France for analysis, but the diving team didn’t miss the opportunity to have a taste, and it seems the deep, dark, cold conditions of its ocean resting place have left the champagne in respectable condition. “It was fantastic,” Finnish diver Christian Ekstrom was quoted as saying on Reuters. “It had a very sweet taste, you could taste oak and it had a very strong tobacco smell. And there were very small bubbles.”
Given its position when it sank, the cargo vessel was almost certainly on its way to St Petersburg in Russia, but it is not yet known how many bottles of the champagne are on the wreck. Local newspaper Alandstidningen in Finland reported an estimated value of nearly US$70,000 per bottle, according to Richard Juhlin, a champagne expert in Sweden.
The existing record for the oldest bottle of drinkable champagne is held by Perrier-Jouët, which has two bottle of 1825 vintage.
