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A bit of bottle age.

Posted by Stephen Meuse  July 20, 2010 11:15 AM
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grimsholm.JPG

I happened to be re-reading one of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey novels (The Surgeon's Mate, 1980) when news came in about the bottles of Champagne found by divers exploring a two centuries-old shipwreck in the Baltic Sea a few days ago. The wine, still soundly corked and apparently none the worse for having lain 200 years in what would be thought of as ideal conditions (cool, dark, still) could we reproduce them in our cellars, is said to date from around 1780.

We say none the worse, even though the contents of only one has been sampled and reported on to date. “It tasted fantastic," said diver Christian Ekstrom. "It was a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak."

The little quinky-dink here is that much of the plot of the Surgeon's Mate plays out in the Baltic and the strategic port of Grimsholm, which the British are keen to wrest from Napoleon - in the period when Champagne from the vintage in question may very well have been on board Aubrey's ship.

One of the fringe benefits of reading O'Brian (he was a recognized authority on the British Navy in the age of sail) are the stores of information on shipboard food and drink. Aubrey and his friend, the naval physician Stephen Maturin, consume prodigious amounts of sherry and claret - as you might guess - and on notable occasions Jack will pull out the Burgundy. But to mark a truly special event it's the Champagne he reaches for.

The recovered wine is expected to be sold at auction. A (very) preliminary estimate of the likely selling price is $68,000/bottle.

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Sheryl Julian, the Globe's Food Editor, writes regularly for the Food section.

Devra First is the Globe's food reporter and restaurant critic. Her reviews appear weekly in the Food section.

Stephen Meuse writes and blogs about wine. His column, By the Glass, appears on the last Wednesday of the month in the Food section. Plonkapalooza, his review of 50 bottles $12 and under, comes out every fall.
 

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