In 2009, Italian winemaker Piero Lugano of Bisson sank thousands of bottles of his Abissi sparkling wine off the coast of Portofino, inspired by tales of ancient wines pulled intact from sunken ships. Since then, wineries from the Basque Country to the British Virgin Islands have followed him down, each convinced that the sea does something to wine that a cellar simply can't. Some argue it's the currents. Others point to the near-total darkness or the gentle, constant motion of the water.
What does underwater wine ageing actually do?
Bodegas Monje's version is Tradicional Submarino, a red made from local grapes grown in volcanic soil and lowered 18m into the Atlantic for five to six months, then hauled back up, uncorked and compared, bottle for bottle, against the same wine that never left the bodega. That comparison is the entire point of the two-hour tasting: not just