For Sale: A $1 Million Bottle of Bordeaux Aged in Space

What goes up should come down. The identical applies for the dozen bottles of crimson wine blasted into area in November of 2019, which splash-landed within the Atlantic earlier this yr. They’ve dried off, cleaned up, and now one bottle is being bought by the public sale home Christie’s. After growing old for 14 months aboard the International Space Station, a bottle of space-aged Merlot can now be yours. Christie’s expects a promoting worth of an astronomical $1 million.

From 250 miles excessive, the crate of Petrus 2000 (a luxurious Merlot) orbited Earth at 17,500 mph for 438 days on the ISS for a grand whole of 186 million miles lined. It’s solely the primary stage of a six-part experiment by Luxembourg-based analysis start-up House Cargo Limitless to higher perceive how natural supplies react to extraterrestrial environments, with future missions inspecting vegetation, micro organism, and yeast. If prioritizing wine appears misguided, it might assist to grasp that the sale of the prized bottle will fund future missions.

A minimum of one wine professional discovered the 2000 Petrus to be a clever choice. Jane Anson is a wine taster, creator, and Bordeaux correspondent for Decanter. “It’s a really wanted and costly wine, even earlier than it takes off into area,” she says. By “costly,” she means hundreds of {dollars} (presently averaging $6,410 per bottle, per Wine-Searcher). As for its repute, Anson recollects a dinner at a pal’s home. “They served the Petrus by itself after the principle course, earlier than dessert, as its personal course. That’s what Petrus is, it’s an occasion wine,” she says. “It simply has that reverence.” It’s stated that in wine tastings, nobody dares spit out even a drop of Petrus.

Anson was certainly one of 11 fortunate connoisseurs (along with the Mayor of Bordeaux) chosen to pattern the space-aged Petrus towards a terrestrial management group at Bordeaux’s Institute for Wine and Vine Analysis in March. “I believed possibly it might be vinegar, simply occupied with all of the stuff it went via,” she says. She wasn’t alone, both: “You might inform the blokes behind the mission there have been very, very nervous.”

Based on Anson, each connoisseur (and the Mayor) famous a distinction in taste between the 2 vintages. She discovered the space-wine to be extra floral and smokier than the management wine. As she explains, wines of that selection begin out fruity after they’re younger, then tackle floral, smoky expressions as they age. “It appeared to me, with my earthling information,” she says, “that it grew to become a bit extra developed.” Nonetheless, there was a refined one thing, a je ne sais quois, within the style of the space-wine that eluded even an professional like Anson. “I walked out of that room pondering, ‘I don’t know why there’s a distinction, however there’s a distinction.’”

Three of the bottles have been opened for the tasting, eight are reserved for ongoing analysis, and one bottle will likely be bought through non-public sale by Christie’s. The space-aged Petrus will likely be bought alongside a terrestrial classic, nestled inside a hand-made “celestial chest” that includes a “shifting photo voltaic system sculpture … a crystal decanter, crystal glasses, and a corkscrew produced from a meteorite found on the North Pole.” Should you’re out there for a million-dollar get together trick, this would possibly simply be the ticket.

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