(Warsaw) A champagne from the 19the century at the bottom of the Baltic Sea still good for toast?
A team of Polish divers have discovered the wreck of an old sailing ship loaded “to the brim” with luxury items, including porcelain and around 100 bottles of champagne and mineral water, at a depth of around 58 metres off the Swedish coast.
They believe the valuable goods could have been on their way to the royal table in Stockholm or to the Russian tsar’s residence in St. Petersburg when the ship sank in the second half of the 19th century.e century, according to team leader Tomasz Stachura.
PHOTO TOMASZ STACHURA, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Around 100 bottles of champagne and mineral water were found at a depth of around 58 metres off the Swedish coast.
The private diving group Baltictech, which searches for wrecks in the Baltic seabed, made the discovery on July 11 while checking points of interest about 37 kilometers south of the island of Öland. They were ready to call it a day, but two divers, Marek Cacaj and Pawel Truszynski, decided to do a quick dive and emerged two hours later with news of the wreck and its precious cargo.
“I’ve been diving for 40 years, and it’s not uncommon to find a tank or two in a wreck, but to find this much cargo is a first for me,” Stachura told The Associated Press this week.
PHOTO MAREK CACAJ, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
The private diving group Baltictech discovered the wreck on July 11.
The mineral water brand Selters, which was known at the time to have medicinal properties, was printed on the stoneware bottles. The champagne brand has yet to be determined, but the letter R was visible on one cork, Stachura said.
“At this depth, the wreck is perfectly preserved, the temperature is constant, there are no currents and it is dark,” he explained. “This preserves the wreck in a wonderful way.”
He said that champagne and selters experts have already contacted Baltictech and want to carry out laboratory tests on the contents of the bottles. But it is the Swedish authorities who will decide the next steps in exploring the wreck, Stachura said.
Divers from Baltictech had 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.