I remember when I met Gabe Cook aka The Ciderologist, Elizabeth Pimblett from the Hereford Cider Museum, Andy Black from Visit Herefordshire, Sally Perks from the Welsh Perry and Cider Society, Jayne Hunt from Heritage Orchards Wales and Susanna Forbes from Little Pomona at Bilbao airport. In our way to the Basque Ciderland, somebody was joking about a fish flavored cider, or something like that.
I do my best with English but I was driving, had to stay focused on the road and it was difficult to follow the conversation. I believe it was Gabe who answered, following the joke, that they could put the barrels under the sea.
So I tried to tell them that actually there is a company that has an underwater cellar (Cellar! The word I was looking for! ). It’s called Crusoe Treasure and basically what they do is to keep third party wines and #spirits under the sea.
There are more underwater cellars around the world. The result is good wine in a very fancy pirate-like bottle, as well as a fantastic marketing and storytelling campaign targeting luxury markets.
There is a problem with the health regulations though. They can’t market such a decorative shell-covered bottle. So what you finally get is a very well designed and labeled bottle.
I could taste some red wine and it was really good, since they put good wines under the sea, although I didn’t appreciate big differences. But I’m not an expert taster at all. Some reputed enologists say “treasuring” makes the difference. This is how they call it cause they can’t use “aging”.
Apparently, the movement of the waves and the humidity 65 feet under the sea does some kind of reaction resulting a different type of wine. A beautiful and fanciful idea, no doubt. I can only say that you should taste and judge it yourself.
It’s been 6 years since I was there, and I know they’ve made new experiments like a blend between the grape varieties hondarrabi zuri (txakoli wine) and verdejo. Recently I’ve discovered that they’ve also treasured some cider under the sea. We’ll have to taste this!
Pictures were taken during a visit to their headquarters in Plentzia (Bizkaia, #Basque Country). We didn’t have the occassion to dive into the cellar, although they offer this experience.
