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A team of Polish divers exploring a 19th-century shipwreck in Swedish territorial water turned up buried Baltic Sea bubbly — Champagne and mineral water.
The Baltictech diving team found the shipwreck on July 11, and a lengthy dive uncovered the uncommon cargo: more than 100 bottles of Champagne and around 100 sealed clay bottles of Selters brand mineral water.
Baltictech said in a release that the seals on the water bottles dated between 1850 and 1867.
The mineral water was particularly interesting to the divers since during the 1800s the product was highly prized and available only to the wealthiest consumers. Shipments of the stuff were escorted by police.
The amount of cargo in the ship was unprecedented.
“I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that we find a bottle or two in a wreck, but to discover so much cargo, it’s a first for me,” group leader Tomasz Stachura told The Associated Press.
While the exact identity of the ship is not known, Mr. Stachura told The New York Times that he thinks the vessel was lost by Czar Nicholas I of Russia in 1852.
“That would explain why the ship had this cargo — which was all very exclusive. Usually, when we find wrecks the cargo is very cheap,” Mr. Stachura told the BBC.
While the taste might be questionable after so many years, it’s possible the sea could have helped preserve the sparkling wine, keeping oxygen from seeping through the bottles’ corks.
“It would probably taste more youthful than a wine that had been aging at the winery,” Finnish Champagne expert Essi Avellan told NYT.
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