World's Oldest Champagne May Sell for $145 Million a Bottle

SFGate: World's Oldest Champagne May Sell for $145 Million a Bottle

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- The world's oldest Champagne, which spent about 170 years at the bottom of the ocean, may fetch as much as 100 million euros ($145 million) a bottle at an auction.

Two bottles go on sale today in Mariehamn, capital of Aaland, a Finnish-controlled archipelago of 6,500 islands in the Baltic sea, where divers discovered the precious cargo in a previously unknown shipwreck.

"This is truly a historic event," Stephane Baschiera, president of Veuve Clicquot, said in a statement. "We have worked closely with the government of Aaland since the discovery of the shipwreck to help salvage and protect the precious wines, which we know now were tasted by Madame Clicquot herself."

New York-based wine specialist Acker Merrall & Condit, which is running the sale, quoted Richard Juhlin, an authority on Champagne, as saying the bottles might fetch 100,000 euros, ten times the minimum price of 10,000 euros. Acker Merrall said it sold two bottles of 1959 Dom Perignon Rose in April 2008 for a combined total of $84,700.

About 145 bottles were found intact, including Veuve Clicquot, Heidsieck -- today made by Vranken-Pommery Monopole -- and Juglar, which became part of Jacquesson. The two being sold are from Juglar and Veuve, which will also offer 15 rare bottles from its own cellars and is a partner in the sale.

Two bottles were cracked open in November and I got to taste the Juglar, which was remarkably fresh. The fizz had almost gone and it was too sweet for today's palate, yet it retained a distinctive smell of orange and raisins, like a Christmas cake. It might still be served as a dessert wine.

Tsar's Court
The original destination of the Champagne isn't known. There is speculation it may have been headed for the tsar's court in St. Petersburg. It was well preserved because it lay horizontally, under pressure, at a low temperature in the dark, 50 meters (55 yards) below the surface.

The authorities in Aaland, an autonomous, Swedish-speaking region of Finland, say the proceeds of the sale will go to a good cause, such as environmental measures to improve the quality of the water in the seas around Aaland, whose main industries are shipping, trade, banking, farming and food. About 65 of the islands are inhabited, with 11,000 people living in Mariehamn, the archipelago's only town, founded in 1861.

The oldest Veuve Clicquot previously held by the Champagne house dates back to 1893, said Francois Hautekeur, a winemaker with Veuve, who is assisting with preserving the Champagne.

Porcelain Plates
While the exact age isn't yet known, marine archaeologists estimate the twin-masted schooner on which the bottles were found is from the second quarter of the 19th century. Plates on board were manufactured by Rorstrand porcelain factory between 1780 and 1830.

When one of the Champagne bottles was brought to the surface, the pressure change caused the cork to pop. One diver took a swig from the bottle expecting it to taste of seawater and realized that it was good. The team drank some from plastic beakers, resealed it and took it to a local sommelier, Ella Grussner Cromwell-Morgan, to taste the next day.

Veuve Clicquot is made by Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world's largest maker of luxury goods.

The divers also discovered bottles of the world's oldest beer. That is being analyzed by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, with a view to recreating the original recipe for modern industrial production. VTT is studying what microbes -- for example, yeast or lactic acid bacteria -- remain in the beer. It will use chemical analyses to determine what kind of raw materials were used in the brewing of the beer.