Not much of a champagne drinker himself, UTC was bemused to learn of the latest bit of bawbaggery to emanate from the heady world of fizzy wine: sea-aged champagne.
And yes, it is what it sounds like: champagne that has been aged 30m underwater for three years.
Why, you might ask? Good question, UTC would respond. But according to Champagne Drappier president Michel Drappier, the idea was to find the “perfect environment for achieving complexity and texture when compared to traditional cellar ageing”.
Having tried to age wines at high altitude to “make the most of consistent, cool temperatures”, Drappier was gutted to discover it didn’t work because he was “losing lots of bubbles because of the high pressure”. So he then went to the other extreme and submerged bottles of his fizz off the bay of Saint-Malo in Brittany for three years.
UTC scoffed at suggestions it was a bold and innovative move, citing the fact that he distinctly remembers ageing some cans of Tennent’s in Loch Lomond for three or four hours during a camping trip way back in the 1950s.
