Here to stay? Aging wine underwater is apparently top-notch
Underwater wine may sound like something the Snorks would love to drink, but make no mistake: this is serious business! Aging wine underwater offers a major advantage, as the Wapisa winemakers from Argentina discovered…
Unlike the subject of an earlier article, this isn’t about putting on a diving suit and descending into the blue depths to taste wine while diving. No, in this case you can simply stay nice and dry on shore while still enjoying wine that offers a different tasting experience in a very special way.
In-depth research
Although it’s not unique to age wine deep beneath the sea, these Argentine winemakers confirm that the result astonished them—it was that good. Patricia Ortiz is the founder of Wapisa (part of Bodega Tapiz) in Rio Negro, and in early 2020 the company announced that it would lower 1,500 magnums of its 2017 Malbec blend into the Atlantic Ocean at depths of between 6 and 15 meters off the coast of Las Grutas. After nine months, the bottles were brought back up and tasted blind alongside exactly the same bottles that had not been on a diving holiday, but had simply aged in a cellar for the same period. And what did they find?
Less time, major impact
The difference was astonishing, according to Ortiz. “In a blind tasting, the underwater wine proved fuller, more elegant, and had fresher fruit.” Some studies show that three years of aging in a cellar is roughly equivalent to one year underwater. As far as Ortiz is concerned, the experiment was a success, because they wanted to find out whether they could produce a young wine with the benefits of a longer-aged one. Wapisa’s next step is to market this technique, for example by selling the underwater bottles alongside the regular ones and inviting customers to taste the differences. We’re curious, blub!
Read also:
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Source: Food and Wine, image: Fincas Patagonicas
