WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Is that 19th century champagne lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea still worth toasting with?
A team of Polish divers discovered the remains of an old sailing ship “fully loaded” with luxury goods, including porcelain and about 100 bottles of champagne and mineral water, at a depth of about 58 meters (190 feet) off the coast of Sweden.
Tomasz Stachura, leader of the research team, said they believe the valuable items could have been on their way to the royal table in Stockholm or the Russian czar’s residence in St. Petersburg when the ship sank in the late 19th century.
BalticTec, a group of private divers who search for shipwrecks on the floor of the Baltic Sea, made the discovery on July 11 while investigating a site of interest about 37 kilometers (20 nautical miles) south of the island of Öland. They had intended to call it a day, but two divers, Marek Kakai and Pawel Trzynski, decided to rush down and surfaced two hours later with news of the wreckage and valuable cargo.
No to chiba mamy ten skarbu, zrestu oseentje sami -) let’s kill Švec sprouzalishmy Żysztkię…
Contributor Tomasz Stachura upon Tuesday, July 23, 2024
“I’ve been diving for 40 years and I often find one or two bottles on shipwrecks, but I’ve never found such a large load,” Stachura told The Associated Press this week.
The stoneware bottles were stamped with “Seltzer’s,” a brand of mineral water believed at the time to have medicinal properties, and although the brand of champagne has yet to be identified, the letter “R” was visible on one of the corks, Stachura said.
He said he believes the contents are still in good condition.
“At this depth, the wreckage is perfectly preserved: the temperature is constant, there are no currents, and it’s dark,” Stachura said. “That’s what makes it so well preserved.”
Stachura said Champagne and Seltzer experts have already contacted BalticTec, expressing interest in testing the bottle’s contents in a laboratory, but he said it is up to Swedish authorities to decide the next steps in investigating the wreck.
Baltic Tech divers previously discovered the wreck of the SS Karlsruhe, the last ship to leave Königsberg in 1945 as part of the evacuation of German civilians during World War II.
