On its website, California wine company Ocean Fathoms praises the waters of the Santa Barbara channel as “the perfect environment” for aging its wines. “[T]he set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product,” the company claims, before praising the abundant underwater flora and fauna that attach itself to each bottle. In 2017, Ocean Fathoms started to submerge specially designed crates of its wine in the channel, and when the bottles were retrieved 12 months later, they were sold for up to $500 each. The problem — and this is a significant one —...