Champagne 230 years old is up for auction

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

What can you not find at the bottom of the sea … Here are the inhabitants of flora and fauna, and various treasures. For example, last year divers found 30 bottles of 230-year-old champagne at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. And now two of them are up for auction in Finland.

The auction will take place on June 3 in the city of Mariehman. One of the bottles is said to contain Veuve Clicquot champagne, while the other contains wine from the now defunct Juglar house. Both brands are the oldest in the world. The local authorities, who are the organizers of the auction, hope to bail out up to 100 thousand euros for each bottle.

Despite the fact that the bottles lay at the bottom of the sea for about 200 years (the ship sank presumably between 1825 and 1830, and was discovered only in 2010), the organizers of the auction assure that the champagne was perfectly preserved.

According to the head of the diving team Christian Extrem, the champagne was found at a depth of 55 meters. The visibility was very poor, so the divers could not see the name of the ship or its anchor.

For some time, those who found a kind of treasure tried to determine what was in the bottles. “We contacted Moet & Chandon, and they are 98 percent sure it is Veuve Clicquot,” Ekström said.

According to AFP, the bottles probably followed the Baltic Sea from Louis XVI to Peter I. However, Lenta.ru noted that in this case there is a small discrepancy: Peter I died in 1725. Therefore, if the dating is correct, then Louis XVI could send champagne only to Catherine II.

"Veuve Clicquot" in France began to be made in 1772, and for the first 10 years this type of champagne was not uncorked. Consequently, deliveries to Russia could not begin earlier than 1782. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the ship with the "Veuve Clicquot" departed later than 1788-1789, since the production of the drink was suspended due to the French Revolution.