If you think you have sampled some delicious wine from the richest nooks and corners of the planet, then you’re in for a surprise with the awesomeness of the first-of-its-kind space wine! While humans continue to wait in line for a trip to outer space, a dozen bottles of Chateau Petrus Pomerol have already completed a 438-day, 19-hour stay on the International Space Station, where they were exposed to zero gravity. The first bottle of this space wine has been uncorked and tasted to reveal a taste of rose petals with notes of campfire, along with a brick-like coloring compared to the original red coloration the wine had before going to the ISS. Another fascinating fact noticed was how the space wine evolved three years over the 14-month visit. Those wondering why these bottles were sent to space in the first place were a study on how weightlessness and space radiation affects the aging process to develop new flavors and properties for the food industry. Nicolas Gaume, CEO and co-founder of Space Cargo Unlimited, who carefully uncorked the bottles at the Institute for Wine and Vine Research in Bordeaux, said: ‘I have tears in my eyes.”When you expose wine, when you expose cells, plants to an environment without gravity…we create tremendous stress on any living species.”
Jane Anson, a wine expert and writer for The Decanter, was also a part of this out-of-the-world tasting said, “The main difference I found was heightened floral characteristics. For me, the one that had remained on earth was still a bit more closed, a bit more tannic, a bit younger. And the one that had been up into space, the tannins had softened, the side of more floral aromatics came out.”
[Via: Al Jazeera]
