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 ...
Leather, barnyard and smoky? Sounds like blanc de noir.
That’s one “liquid” tasting I’m just not qualified to attend. I do know some dogs who might be up to the task. No panthers, unfortunately.
IMHO, horrid when fresh.
Aged 5 years or more, sweet, delicious, and around 22% alcohol.
You just want to smile, crawl under the table and snooze.
I never heard of a bottle of wine that spent anywhere near that length of time underwater that hadn’t turned rancid.
Stiffer than wine!
“Not sure the hipsters actually admit to liking PBR though.”
They might not like it but they sure drink it.
I think it’s one of those things they do without questioning because it’s part of the hipster culture. Like a certain sort of people thought bell bottoms and parachute pants were just the Bee’s Knees.
“My Pop enjoyed PBR and he was no hipster.
I’d rather er have a Miller.”
Your Pop was a different generation. I refuse to judge his generation by today’s standards. So Pop gets a pass.
I’m with you on the Miller, killed many an 8 pack of the pony bottles in my day.
You and me both.🤮
Damn and I just dumped a whole bunch of Hofbreu and Stella because it was in the garage fridge from about 10 years ago. Somehow it got pushed to the back and was never consumed.if I didn’t have to move the fridge, it would probably be there another decade. Did t taste it though. But the ground hog in our backyard had a wonderful weekend.
I grew up in Milwaukee. Many of my Uncles worked for Miller Brewing.
Since they couldn’t AFFORD the beer they were brewing, they drank Pabst and Old Milwaukee. ;)
I remember reading, decades ago, in National Geographic of scientists doing the same to sealed bottles of wine from the sunken city of Port Royal. I believe the wine was described as “skunky”.
They said, “Arrrrrrr, this wine be skunky, arrrrrrr.”
Did you mean ICONIC?
I remember part of one of their singing radio commercials from way back when...
Pabst won the Blue Ribbon
in 1893
Now it is here, the original beer
no longer a memory
Great movie.
L
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