Now that's a treasure I can get behind. They say that wine gets better with age, but we're talking 175 years here. Divers recently discovered bottles of champagne and wine that are almost two hundred years old in a shipwreck.
The Polish divers explored the shipwreck of a 19th-century sailing ship off the coast of Sweden. That's when they discovered the motherload. They found hundreds of sealed bottles in the wreckage. The divers belong to a private group called Baltitech. They search regularly along the Baltic seabed for wreckage. They almost missed this shipwreck in particular.
In a press release, they wrote, "We had already done one dive that day. And at first there were doubts whether anyone would be willing to go down. Marek Cacaj and Pawe? Truszy?ski showed great determination and decided that they would do a quick dive. And they were gone for almost 2 hours. So we already knew that there was something very interesting at the bottom."
The wreckage appears to be a fishing boat. They found several luxury items among the wreckage including porcelain, mineral water, and champagne.
Champagne At The Bottom Of The Sea
They wrote, "Indeed we came across a 19th century sailing ship in very good condition, loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, porcelain and mineral water. There was so much of it that it was difficult for us to estimate the quantities. We certainly saw over 100 bottles of champagne and baskets of mineral water in clay bottles. And it was this water that turned out to be the most interesting and led us to further clues."
They continued, "In those times, mineral water was treated almost like medicine and only found its way to royal tables. Its value was so valuable that the transports were escorted by the police. We came across about 100 sealed bottles of #Selters water. This is a German factory that still exists today, and its products are still considered exquisite. Thanks to the shape of the stamp and the help of historians, we know that our transport was produced between 1850-1867. Interestingly, the ceramic factory into which the water was bottled also exists and we are in contact with them to find out more details."
The team were shocked by how much champagne they found. The dive team believe these goods were probably in transit to royalty when the ship sank. The bottles found appeared to be just a couple years younger than the oldest bottle of champagne in the world.
"I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that we find a bottle or two in a wreck, but to discover so much cargo, it's a first for me," Tomasz Stachura, the team's leader, told The Associated Press this week.
