Wine from the deep sea tastes... better?

As it turns out, wine aged in barrels in the depths of the sea tastes better than the same vintage aged on land. Does this mean that this type of ageing improves the quality of the wine? This is what three gentlemen – a vineyard manager, a barrel maker and an oyster farmer – were trying to find out.

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Bruno Lemoine, who runs the Chateau Haut-Brion Larrivet vineyard in the south-eastern region of Bordeaux, once asked his friend Pierre Guillaume Chiberry to create for him two small (56-litre) wooden barrels in which he could age the wine for an additional 6 months.

The first barrel was to be laid to rest in the castle’s cellars, while the second… underwater on an oyster farm in the Arcachon Bay area, which is renowned for the best farming of the delicacy. The first barrel was christened Tellus, after the Roman goddess of the earth, while the second… Neptune, for reasons best known.

In January, both barrels finished ageing and were taken to be bottled. The two wines were then tested and analysed.

While Tellus was a disappointment and did not surprise, Neptune was a fantastic surprise. It tasted much better than expected. The expert comparing the two wines said that the water-aged wine had a pleasantly silky and much more complex flavour than its cousin aged in the castle cellar.

Source: missglougloou.blog.lemonde.fr