The world's oldest known bottle of wine was found the tomb of a Roman noble in 1867 near the German city of Speyer. It is believed to date back to 350AD and to have been produced nearby. Speyer is situated in The Pfalz, one of Germany's top wine growing regions. The bottle was originally tested by the Kaiser's chemists during World War I. The bottle now sits in the Pfalz Historical Museum. The bottle was sealed with wax and olive oil and maintained the seal on the wine and kept it in its liquid state.
Historians and wine experts debate whether the bottle could be opened and whether the liquid could stand the shock of air after all this time. Chemists claim that from a microbiology perspective the wine is probably fine, although it wouldn't be very appealing to the palate. While I personally wouldn't want to drink it, it's pretty amazing that a simple wax seal has kept it effectively preserved for so long.
Historians and wine experts debate whether the bottle could be opened and whether the liquid could stand the shock of air after all this time. Chemists claim that from a microbiology perspective the wine is probably fine, although it wouldn't be very appealing to the palate. While I personally wouldn't want to drink it, it's pretty amazing that a simple wax seal has kept it effectively preserved for so long.
I wanted to connect this post to the earlier mention of Thomas Jefferson and wine. There is a subset of the wine collector's market that focuses on extremely old wine, or wine owned by famous people. One such bottle from Chateau Lafite Bordeaux's 1787 vintage supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson sold for $150k+ at auction (the vineyard from the case for tomorrow, and the year the U.S. wrote its Constitution).
ReplyDeleteThere have been other bottles associated with historical vintages that have earned similar valuations at auction. Below is an article detailing the top five bottles at auction by cost-per-serving. These include a 1945 Margaux, the year World War II ended, and a 1941 Inglenook that, as Francis Ford Coppola, now the owner of the Inglenook vineyard noted, was finishing fermenting as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That 1941 Inglenook takes the prize for the most expensive American wine ever sold at auction at ~$25k.
Finally, films will reference wine from historical vintages for effect. For example, in the sequel to Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr's character notes that a French revolutionary is drinking a 1789 Margaux, in honor of the year of his country's revolution. Much like how Alyssa mentioned she will drink from her birth year vintage on special birthdays, it is worth looking for how films will leverage historical vintages for dramatic effect.
http://theweek.com/articles/457193/5-most-expensive-bottles-wine-ever-sold