14 luglio 2014

A bit of industrial archeology, the desire to take uncommon paths, a hint of romance. Thus was born a new wine project on the Adriatic sea.

They emerge from the sea, after being lulled by the waves of the Adriatic from six to twelve months under thirty meters depth and at the constant temperature of 13° centigrade. The bottles of Merlot, Cabernet, Sangiovese and Albana from the Tenuta Del Paguro are presented this year to world markets. A project which not coincidentally is born in Ravenna, where in September of 1965 the methane Agip platform Paguro sank into the depths to become, thirty years later, an oasis for underwater wildlife. There, where the flavor of the ancient capital of the Byzantine Empire and the modern view of the petrochemical meet to create a " salted " wine ( salty ), as it was called by the ancient Romans, able to conquer the palates worldwide .

Auctions for bottles aged under the sea

" The idea was born in 2010, by seeing a glass bottle floating in the bank, and takes now officially launch to a commercial level after a year of testing ," says Gianluca Grilli who, with partner Raffaele Ravaglia - mate of diving adventures and passion for wine - has sold the first 300 bottles aged in sea through specific online auction at an average price of 100 euro each. Now there are 2 thousand bottles of the four most representative wines of Romagna - with the names of four crustaceans that inhabit the wreck on the seabed - immersed in the oasis of the Paguro, an area of two hundred meters in diameter located in Porto Corsini: the lobster Merlot, the prawn Cabernet, the hermit crab Sangiovese and the mantis shrimp Albana.

A natural "remuage" on the seabed

"We just submerged even 800 bottles of Sangiovese Riserva 2009", adds Grilli, explaining that all bottles "are lowered inside large baskets of steel anchored on the seabed, which can swing playing the riddling method champenoise used for sparkling wine production.". Moreover, even Veuve Cliquot recently launched a similar project in Mar Baltico. And also the Lake Iseo is an "aging cellar" to bottles company Valcamonica.

The wine is made from a cellar of Brisighella, resurfaces after months at the mercy of the waves (and under the supervision of the Paguro Association of divers) with a softer flavor, blended, thanks to the pressure difference, the absence of light and temperature changes, and does not age more over time.

One hundred Euros per bottle - Requests from London and Hong Kong

"We hope to get up to 5 thousand, maybe 10 thousand bottles production", provide the two partners. With a price of one hundred Euros per bottle - 150 Euros for the Riserva - more than a million sales will not be a difficult task. Also because in this experiment of great range, even in the packaging (boxes in pine, the typical woods of Romagna and numbered handwritten labels) are already focusing eyes of European, Russian and Asian distributors : "Right now we are dealing with large groups of importers in London and Hong Kong ," said Grilli. But the adventure has just begun.