Divers have found bottles of 200-year-old champagne in a wreck in the Baltic Sea. The bottles are believed to date from 1780s and were probably a cargo en route to Russia.
'We brought up the bottle to be able to establish how old the wreck was,' said Swedish diving instructor Christian Ekstrom. 'We didn't know it would be champagne. We thought it was wine or something.'
The divers discovered the wreck, which lies at 55m, near the Aland Islands that lie between Sweden and Finland. They say there are about 30 bottles of champagne on board.
The divers opened the bottle they brought to the surface and tasted its contents. 'It tasted fantastic,' said Ekstrom. 'It was a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak.'
Wine experts have estimated that the bottles could be worth £42,000 each, if the corks have stayed dry and the champagne is genuine. The dark and cold conditions of the Baltic sea could have provided perfect storage conditions for the wine.
