Some 20 years ago, some grapes from the Bordeaux region of France were harvested, crushed and fermented into merlot, just as countless similar grapes had been before. But in 2019 12 bottles of Pétrus 2000 merlot were sent into space.
Normally valued at 5,000 euros each bottle, this batch spent 438 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), about 14 months. The wine circled Earth many times, subject to the uncertain effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation, and returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule on January 14, 2021.
What price will this bottle of “alien wine fetch?”
Now, auction house Christie’s has announced that it will sell a single bottle of Pétrus 2000 space through its Private Sales website. The bottle is expected to fetch around 1 million dollars (about 822,585 euros). It comes packaged in a personalized trunk that includes a bottle of Pétrus 2000 terrestrial and a handmade corkscrew.
Proceeds from this sale will help fund future research on space wine from Space Cargo Unlimited, the private company that shipped the bottles to the ISS in 2019.
Does it taste different?
Based on a blind taste test conducted in March 2021, it appears so. When a panel of 12 people (including wine experts and scientists) drank a glass of space-aged Pétrus 2000 wine along with a glass of the normal terrestrial variety, they detected certain differences. For most, its taste denoted as if it had aged several more years while in space.
