Space exploration and wines have nothing in common, but there is one bottle that dared to go where no other bottle has been. Space, the final frontier for wine.
A very special bottle of Petrus 2000 is coming up for auction with Christie’s, and could fetch up to $1 million. Ridiculously expensive wine is not unheard of, but this is the very first bottle of “space wine” ever to be sold at public auction, so the price tag is more than justified. The phrase “space wine” is not a euphemism, either: this Petrus was aged for 14 months on board the International Space Station (ISS).
On November 2, 2019, Space Cargo Unlimited launched the Mission WISE (Vitis Vinum in Spatium Experimentia) program, which saw 12 bottles head out to the ISS aboard a Cygnus capsule. On January 14, 2021, the bottles returned to Earth with a Dragon spacecraft. In March, some of these bottles were popped open for a tasting at the ISVV (Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin) in Bordeaux, where a panel of 12 wine professionals and scientists compared the space wine to the Earth version.
Their conclusion was that the Petrus aged in space in a controlled atmosphere had a different body and taste to the one aged on Earth. The WISE program is meant to help scientists understand and develop the techniques of tomorrow for food and agriculture. One must agree, vino is a good place to start with.
As for the bottle offered at auction, it comes with a terrestrial version, presumably for comparison’s sake. Both bottles of Petrus 2000 are packaged in a very special and quite gorgeous trunk by Les Ateliers Victor, handmade over the course of 900 hours of work. It features “a solar system inspired by Jules Verne” on the lid, and includes a decanter and glasses, as well as a corkscrew “made from a meteorite.”
It is, if you can afford the estimated $1 million price tag, the perfect present for a wine lover slash space exploration enthusiast. All the proceeds from the sale will go to Space Cargo Unlimited, to finance future experiments in space.
On November 2, 2019, Space Cargo Unlimited launched the Mission WISE (Vitis Vinum in Spatium Experimentia) program, which saw 12 bottles head out to the ISS aboard a Cygnus capsule. On January 14, 2021, the bottles returned to Earth with a Dragon spacecraft. In March, some of these bottles were popped open for a tasting at the ISVV (Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin) in Bordeaux, where a panel of 12 wine professionals and scientists compared the space wine to the Earth version.
Their conclusion was that the Petrus aged in space in a controlled atmosphere had a different body and taste to the one aged on Earth. The WISE program is meant to help scientists understand and develop the techniques of tomorrow for food and agriculture. One must agree, vino is a good place to start with.
As for the bottle offered at auction, it comes with a terrestrial version, presumably for comparison’s sake. Both bottles of Petrus 2000 are packaged in a very special and quite gorgeous trunk by Les Ateliers Victor, handmade over the course of 900 hours of work. It features “a solar system inspired by Jules Verne” on the lid, and includes a decanter and glasses, as well as a corkscrew “made from a meteorite.”
It is, if you can afford the estimated $1 million price tag, the perfect present for a wine lover slash space exploration enthusiast. All the proceeds from the sale will go to Space Cargo Unlimited, to finance future experiments in space.