(GUA) Fancy a deep red? The rise of underwater wineries

[AKR]

Fancy a deep red? The rise of underwater wineries
2021-03-30 04:13:06.682 GMT

Fancy a deep red? The rise of underwater wineries

Ashifa Kassam

(Guardian) -- Slipping into the chilly waters of the Baltic sea, the divers
descended more than 60 metres to where the masts of the Jönköping lay strewn
across the seabed. They glided past the wounds left when the Swedish schooner
was sunk by a German U-boat in 1916 to home in on the rare treasure they had
come for: thousands of bottles of 1907 Heidsieck champagne.

For more than eight decades the bottles had sat undisturbed on the seabed,
cloaked in darkness and protected by near-constant temperatures and pressure.
Photographs showing the bottles being gingerly raised from the sea by the
divers in 1998 soon began to circulate, accompanied by rave reviews from
impromptu tastings of the precious cargo.

In Spain’s Basque country, the discovery added to the list of wine-laden
shipwrecks that had long captured the imagination of Borja Saracho, a keen
diver. Could the sea’s dark depths, gently rocking tidal movements and
constant temperatures hold the secret to creating great wines? “We decided
there was an opportunity to find out what was going on in these shipwrecks,”
he said.

If I put 20 wine tanks below the sea – all exactly the same – they’ll all
come back different

Working with a small team, he secured permission to rent 500 square metres of
seabed in the bay of Plentzia on Spain’s north coast, sinking specially
designed structures capable of storing wine while also acting as an artificial
reef. Winemakers across the country soon joined in the experiment, sending
bottles of wine for Saracho to plunge into the sea.

The results transformed Saracho into a proponent of underwater ageing and
culminated in the launch of Crusoe Treasure, one of Spain’s largest underwater
wineries, in 2010. “It was astounding,” he said. “The wines’ evolution
underwater was very distinct from what would happen with the same grape on
land.”

Similar experiments were playing out around the world, laying the foundation
for what today is a niche – but rapidly growing – sector of the wine industry.
From Greece and Italy to new world producers in Chile and the US, winemakers
are harnessing the power of underwater environments to shape everything from
bold reds to sparkling cavas.

The logic is that underwater conditions mimic the crucial ageing factors that
are thought to contribute so much to the flavour of wine, such as constant
temperature and the absence of light. Winemakers soon went further, arguing
that the watery cellar was leaving its own, singular imprint on the wines,
said Mark O’Neill, a wine writer and the owner of Spain’s The Wine Place. “If
you’ve got a good wine, it will add a point of difference,” he said. “The wine
will have evolved in a different way.”

The technique, however, comes at a cost. The logistics of submerging and
retrieving the wine, often requiring divers as well as boats, and the
increased risk of breakage and leaks can swell production costs by as much as
70% when compared with ageing wine on land.

Even so, interest in the idea has soared in recent years, in part boosted by
the recovery of 168 bottles of champagne from another shipwreck in the Baltic
sea, this time in 2010. After spending about 170 years deep-sea ageing in what
researchers described as “close-to-perfect conditions”, a single bottle of
Veuve Clicquot found in the wreckage later sold for €30,000.

Among those turning to underwater ageing are some of the industry’s biggest
players. Louis Roederer, the maker of Cristal champagne, made headlines when
it began using the waters off France’s Mont Saint-Michel as an underwater
cellar. A experiment by Veuve Clicquot, due to run for decades, saw the luxury
brand sink a champagne-filled vault into the brackish waters of the Baltic
Sea.

As the sector grows, the techniques are varying wildly. Some winemakers sink
their wines in sealed amphorae, while others use custom-designed barrels or
submersible cages laden with algae-encrusted bottles. Others have eschewed
marine environments for water-filled tanks on land. Wines have been plunged to
depths of 40 metres, while others have wallowed in shallower waters, left to
the whims of rising tides and at times partly exposed to air.

The lack of any kind of overarching ethos was among the factors that led to
the first-ever underwater wine congress, held in 2019 in northern Spain. “The
hope is that people are responsible with the environments that they’re working
in,” said Anna Riera, a marine biologist who works with the Crusoe Treasure
winery. “If all of a sudden everyone started projects like this, not with
small spaces but with large underwater factories, this type of production
would lose all meaning.”

We’re opening a window in a world that’s still to be discovered

Borja Saracho, Crusoe Treasure

Many in the sector are keenly aware that their foray underwater comes as
climate change tightens its grip on marine ecosystems. In 2008, Emmanuel
Poirmeur of winery Egiategia began submerging sparkling wines in France’s bay
of Saint Jean de Luz, lured by what he described as the perfect conditions for
secondary fermentation. “I realised we were burning a lot of energy to
recreate marine conditions,” he said.

The unpredictable nature of the process soon had him hooked. “If I put 20 wine
tanks below the sea – all exactly the same – they’ll all come back different,”
he said.

In recent years he’s watched the climate crisis inject its own dose of
volatility into the process, forcing him to use more resistant materials and
reckon with a wider range of water temperatures. “What I was doing 12 years
ago is impossible now because all the elements are stronger,” he said. “We
have lots of storms now because of climate change. It’s changing the
temperature of the water and violence of the water.”

The concern is echoed in Spain’s Basque country. At Crusoe Treasure, the
underwater cellars are outfitted with sensors, offering a first-hand look at
how their small plot of seabed – a tranquil stretch of sand surrounded by
rocks in the summer that morphs into a wave-swept cradle in the winter – is
being transformed.

In 2019, Saracho and his team watched as the temperatures at the bottom of the
bay of Plentzia climbed to 20C (68F) – a swing of 9C (16F) from the minimum
temperature recorded. “We had never seen anything like it,” he said.

More than a decade after he and his team began plunging wines underwater, it
was a hint of how much remains unknown about underwater ageing and the bodies
of water it relies on. “We’re opening a window in a world that’s still to be
discovered,” said Saracho. “There’s so much we have to learn.”