SC - Old, old wine

[Chris Stanifer]

- --- Leslie Lansdowne <lalliepop at netzero.net> wrote:
> Hi everyone! (snip)

> To paraphrase from the article, a
> 300-year-old bottle of wine 
> recovered from a 17th century Dutch warship was
> found by divers July 7th 
> off the coast of the Wadden Sea.
> 
> When the wine tasters were given their samples, the
> noticed a strong, 
> rotten egg odor, or as one connoisseur put it, "it
> smells like cow dung!"

My guess is that sulfurous compounds in the wine had,
possibly, come out of suspension, or collected in the
neck of the bottle over the years, and caused the
rotten-egg smell.  With many "modified atmosphere"
food products, the lack of oxygen in the container
will cause the foods to smell quite nasty when they
are first opened, but the smell quickly goes away. 
When you consider this bottle was sealed, and under
the pressure of "x" tons of water, I think it is safe
to assume it is the natural equivelant to "modified
atmosphere".  I could be wrong, of course.  The stuff
could have been made with cow-dung....

Balthazar of Blackmoor
(Ras might have more insight into this, since he seems
to be the resident wine expert)

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