BORDEAUX, France (AP) – It tastes like rose petals. It smells like a fire. It glows with a burnt orange tint. What is that? A 5,000 euro bottle of Petrus Pomerol wine that spent a year in space.
Researchers in Bordeaux are analyzing a dozen bottles of the precious liquid – along with 320 stretches of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon vines – which returned to Earth in January after a season aboard the International Space Station.
They announced their preliminary impressions on Wednesday – mainly, that the lightness did not spoil the wine and seemed to energize the vines.
Organizers say it is part of a long-term effort to make plants on Earth more resistant to climate change and disease, exposing them to new stresses, and to better understand the process of aging, fermentation and bubbles in wine.
In a unique tasting this month, 12 connoisseurs tasted one of the wines traveled through space, tasting it blindly next to a bottle of the same vintage that had stayed in a cellar.
A special pressurized device gently opened the bottles at the Wine and Wine Research Institute in Bordeaux. The tasters sniffed solemnly, looked, and finally drank.
“I have tears in my eyes,” said Nicolas Gaume, CEO and co-founder of the company that organized the experiment, Space Cargo Unlimited, to the Associated Press.
Alcohol and glass are normally prohibited on the International Space Station, so each bottle was packed in a special steel cylinder during the trip.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Gaume said the experiment focused on studying weightlessness – which “creates tremendous stress in any living species” – in wine and vineyards.
“We are just at the beginning,” he said, calling the preliminary results “encouraging.”
Jane Anson, a wine expert and writer for the Decanter wine publication, said the wine that remained on Earth was “a little younger than what had been in space.”
Chemical and biological analysis of the wine aging process may allow scientists to find a way to artificially age fine vintages, said Dr. Michael Lebert, a biologist at Friedrich-Alexander-University in Germany who was consulted on the project.
The pieces of grapevine – known as reeds in the grape world – not only survived the journey, but also grew faster than the grapevines on Earth, despite the limitation of light and water.
Once the researchers determine the reason, Lebert said it could help scientists develop more resilient vines on Earth – and pave the way for growing grapes and producing wine in space.
Christophe Chateau, of the Bordeaux Council of Wine Producers, considered the research “a good thing for the industry”, but predicted that it would take a decade or more to lead to practical applications. Chateau, who was not involved in the project, described ongoing efforts to adjust grape options and techniques to adapt to increasingly hot temperatures.
“Bordeaux wine is a wine that obtains its uniqueness from its history, but also from its innovations,” he told the AP. “And we must never stop innovating.”
Private investors helped finance the project, which researchers hope will continue on new space missions. The cost was not disclosed.
For the ordinary Earthman, the main question is: What does cosmic wine taste like?
“For me, the difference between space and the wine of the land … was not easy to define,” said Franck Dubourdieu, an agronomist and winemaker from Bordeaux, who specializes in the study of wine and winemaking.
The researchers said that each of the 12 panelists had an individual reaction. Some observed “burnt orange reflections”. Others evoked aromas of cured leather or a fire.
“What had remained on Earth, for me, was still a little more closed, a little more tannic, a little younger. And the one that had gone up into space, the tannins have softened, the more aromatic floral side has come out ”, said Anson.
But, whether the harvest went to space or to Earth, she said: “Both were beautiful”.
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Charlton reported from Paris. Nicolas Garriga in Bordeaux contributed.