(probably has a slight sodium chloride finish)
Branding on the corks helped identify the origins of the 170-year-old champagne.Credit: Jeandet et al./PNAS/Visit Aland.
Posted on 08/29/2022 7:28:45 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
What does champagne left on the bottom of the ocean for 170 years taste like? Leather and wet dog, apparently.
Those were the initial findings by a team of scientists and lucky tasters after analyzing a sample from one of the 168 bottles of champagne recovered from a shipwrecked vessel on the Baltic seafloor. Divers had found the sunken trade ship off the Aland Islands of Finland in 2010, and the treasure trove has chemists and connoisseurs curious.
After allowing what is thought to be the oldest champagne ever tasted to breathe, however, the researchers were surprised to find an entirely different quality to the long-lost bubbly alcohol – one they won’t soon forget.
Philippe Jeandet, professor of food biochemistry at the University of Reims in France and colleagues have published a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on the chemical composition of the preserved alcohol. With a small sample from the protected trove, the research team took an archaeochemistry approach when examining the champagne, doing a chemical and sensory analysis.
Initial tastes of the aged champagne were described as containing “animal notes” and “wet hair”. But after wine experts exposed the champagne to oxygen by giving it the traditional swirl and allowing it to breathe, the taste altered dramatically for the better. It was then described as: “empyreumatic, grilled, spicy, smoky, and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes,” according to the paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.binodon24live.com ...
(probably has a slight sodium chloride finish)
Branding on the corks helped identify the origins of the 170-year-old champagne.Credit: Jeandet et al./PNAS/Visit Aland.
Thanks for the link, to another of my favorite FReepers.
“Leather and wet dog, empyreumatic, grilled, spicy, smoky, and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes,”
Damn!
Now the hipsters will be slugging it down like it actually tastes good.
Don’t believe it?
They’ve kept Pabst Blue Ribbon going.
Damned hipsters, can’t stand’em.
Not sure the hipsters actually admit to liking PBR though.
“Leather and wet dog, empyreumatic, grilled, spicy, smoky, and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes,”>>>Just like Carona beer.
I am certain that this champagne tastes like a fart of itself.
I had some 20 year old bottled Guinness before. It wasn’t all that bad, actually. Little bit of cardboard, but otherwise, it was Guinness.
Leather and wet dog just screams “AOC”.
how do they know that wasnt the original, and intended taste??
Pabst is ironic beer. Hipsters drink it because it’s the cheap stuff at old-man bars and a nose-thumb at beer snobs.
My Pop enjoyed PBR and he was no hipster.
I’d rather er have a Miller.
Was it anything like Miller’s High Life: the Champagne of bottled beers?
I'll pass, thanks.
Frank Booth agrees.
Looks like an updated “Pure Old Panther Piss.”
I keep forgetting about the bourbon barrel aged stout in the basement.
It's lost a little fizz over the last 20 years, but still good.
Pretty good.
They lost me at wet dog…
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