Photo: REUTERS/Randall Hill

Back in 2010, archaeologists found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution in a shipwreck on the Baltic seabed.  Remarkably, when a bottle of champagne was opened it was found to be drinkable.  At the time, some commented that a shipwreck was the “perfect wine cellar.”   Well, not always. Recently, beer from the Baltic shipwreck was opened and tasted.  Also a bottle from a Civil War shipwreck was tasted at a food-festival in Charleston, SC.  Neither was worth drinking.

Two bottles of beer from the shipwreck were opened for tasting and analysis. The beer, believed to be around 170 years old was described as smelling and tasting  of “autolyzed yeast, dimethyl sulfide, Bakelite, burnt rubber, over-ripe cheese, and goat, with phenolic and sulfury notes.”  There was also considerable salt in each, suggesting that seawater had leaked in.  Each of the contents of the the two bottles was chemically distinct, indicating different styles of beer. Neither was particularly appealing.

Meanwhile at a food festival in Charleston, South Carolina, 50 people bought tickets to watch as a panel of wine experts decanted and tasted wine recovered from a Civil War era shipwreck.  The wine, now the color of muddy water, was described as  having a “heady sulphur bouquet with distinct notes of saltwater and gasoline.”

As reported by TheWhig.com:  To peals of audience laughter, the panel said the cloudy yellow-gray liquid smelled and tasted like a mixture of crab water, gasoline, salt water and vinegar, with hints of citrus and alcohol.

Wine chemist Pierre Louis Teissedre of the University of Bordeaux who had analyzed samples drawn through the cork earlier said the “nose” of the wine was a room-clearing mix of camphor, stagnant water, hydrocarbons, turpentine and sulphur.

“I’ve had shipwreck wines before,” master sommelier Paul Roberts said. “They can be great.”

This one, obviously, was not.

Thanks to Alaric Bond and Phil Leon for contributing to this post.