Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech
- Divers have found bottles of sparkling wine on a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden.
- There's often huge interest from collectors in shipwrecked wines, an expert told BI.
- If brought to the surface, the latest finds could still be drinkable.
Divers in the Baltic Sea came across an unusual find this month as they explored a shipwreck just off the coast of Sweden.
"We encountered a 19th-century sailing ship in very good condition, loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, mineral water, and porcelain," the Polish diving team Baltictech said.
The sparkling wine bottles numbered more than 100, they added.
"We realized that this was a kind of treasure," Tomasz Stachura, the group's lead diver, told The New York Times.
Marek Cacaj/Baltictech
The team said they managed to put an approximate date on the bottles after an expert examined the labels on the mineral water and estimated that it was produced sometime between 1850 and 1867.
A spokesperson told Business Insider they are "almost sure" the wine is Louis Roederer Champagne, and said they have contacted the company to try to confirm.
The team also floated the idea that the wine may have been destined for a Russian tsar.
Baltictech reported its findings to Swedish authorities and is now awaiting permission to research further and potentially retrieve some of the bottles, the Times reported.
Should the team get its hands on the bubbly, there is likely to be strong interest from fine wine collectors.
"The reason why people are interested in sparkling wine from those shipwrecks is because they've basically been kept at a very cold, constant temperature for however long," Mark Robertson, a senior wine consultant at Dreweatts auction house in the UK, told Business Insider.
"The condition of them can be quite remarkable," he added.
The latest find isn't a lone incident — and wines from well-known vineyards generally get more interest, Robertson said.
In 2011, a 170-year-old bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne that had been pulled up from the bottom of the Baltic Sea went up for auction with a guide price of more than $145,000.
Marek Cacaj/Baltictech
If and when the wine is brought to the surface, the next step would be to figure out if it is still drinkable.
When Stachura examined the bottles on his dive, he saw that there were still bubbles inside, he told the Times. "It came to me that, perhaps, they are drinkable."
As old as the wine is, that's not as unlikely as it sounds.
Experts told BI that in the right conditions, some Champagne can last generations.
"I think if you were to ask anyone, 'how would you preserve a bottle of Champagne?' — the bottom of the Baltic Sea would probably be as good as anywhere," Robertson said.
In fact, some top wine producers are now experimenting with aging their wines at the bottom of the sea, he said.
Nonetheless, 150 years is "quite a long time," he added.
He said the main factor in whether the wine is still drinkable is whether the metal casing over the cork has deteriorated.
Buyers are far more likely to be interested if it's actually drinkable — even if the fizz has gone, Robertson said.
"I don't think you need it to be perfect, but I think you'd need to be able to swallow the stuff and go, 'that's interesting,'" he said. "Rather than swallow it and feel ill."