Amorim has played a major role in the preservation of a 200-yearold champagne discovered off the coast of the Åland archipelago (between Sweden and Finland).

Consultants to the Åland Government asked Amorim to assist in the preservation of the champagne after 168 bottles were recovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

Amorim’s technical champagne team advised on the complex process of replacing the 200-year-old cork stoppers with new ones. The team then developed a stopper from a single piece of natural cork to the exact specifications of the antique bottles.

During this process Amorim’s technical team worked with experts from French champagne house Veuve Clicquot and Åland authorities.

The company also provided special manual bottling machines that allowed the recovery team to insert the new corks at a location as close as possible to the shipwreck site to minimise any impact on the champagne.

“Amorim was honoured when asked to play an important role in the recovery and preservation of this unique champagne,” said the head of Amorim’s technical champagne team, Ernesto Sa Pereira.

“Great consideration and care was put into the development of the natural cork stoppers that are now sealing and preserving some of this liquid history.”

Divers discovered the champagne in July 2010 at a depth of about 50 metres. The ship, a two-masted schooner, is believed to have sunk in the early 1800s.

Archaeologists have determined that some of the bottles come from the champagne house Maison Juglar, which had ceased production by the end of the 1820s. Several bottles have also been identified as Veuve Clicquot.

Experts have been amazed at how well preserved the champagne is - that it tastes superb and has retained some of its fizz after 200 years.

“The two different types have a nice freshness and good length in the mouth,” said Richard Juhlin, one of the world’s leading champagne experts.

Mr Pereira said the experts’ tasting notes were a tribute to cork as a closure.

“The fact that the precious liquid in these bottles has been preserved at the bottom of the sea for two centuries stands as testimony to the unique ability of natural cork to protect the champagnes and wines of this world,” he said.

Cork stoppers play an important role in the development of bottled wine through managed micro-oxygenation.

That is the conclusion of the latest Bordeaux University research on the oxygen transmission rates (OTR) of different closures published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The study examined the effect of oxygen dissolved at bottling and transferred through closures on a Bordeaux sauvignon blanc over a two-year period.

Previous work had shown that screwcap sealed bottles had a minimal OTR, corks transferred oxygen from their internal cells and this levelled off after a few months, while plastic stoppered bottles showed rapid oxygen ingress.

This time the scientists wanted to find out how the oxygen affected the composition and sensory properties of the wine using both chemical and sensory analysis.

The chemical analysis found that antioxidants (ascorbic acid and sulfur dioxide) were depleted in the plastic-stoppered bottles and the wine was a brown colour - indicating high levels of oxygen ingress affecting the fruit characters of the wine. Conversely, antioxidant levels in the screwcapped bottles were still high and the wine colour remained light.

Bottles with cork stoppers showed antioxidant levels and wine colour between those of the plastic and screwcap sealed bottles, suggesting oxygen transmission was slow and minimal.

Paulo Lopes.

The sensory team found the plastic-stoppered wines had lost their fruity attributes and developed oxidised aromas, while the bottles sealed with glass or screwcap had some ‘rotten egg’ characters. The screwcap with a saranex liner, however, was able to minimise these reduced aromas so the sulfide levels were not high enough to spoil the wine.

The team concluded that cork stoppers played an intermediate role, minimising both reductive and oxidative characters, while retaining the varietal fruit characters typical of a sauvignon blanc.

“An oxygen-sensitive variety such as sauvignon blanc benefits from some low oxygen exposure after bottling,” said Dr Paulo Lopes, author of the paper.

“Cork is the best ‘balanced’ of the closure materials, and given careful quality control in manufacture, does not allow atmospheric ingress or high variability.”