This was what happened to a bottle of Château Pétrus Merlot that spent a year aboard the International Space Station which was later auctioned at Christie's - reported at a price tag of over $1 million!
You won't believe what exposure to microgravity and cosmic radiation can do to a fine wine.
00:00A typical bottle of Petrus 2000 wine, grown in Bordeaux, France, will set you back about $6,000.
00:07But a bottle of Petrus 2000, which spent 14 months in space?
00:12That could cost you about a million.
00:21It's being called the first bottle of wine aged in space.
00:25But really, it's one of 12.
00:30From November 2019 to January 2021, a dozen bottles of Petrus 2000 wine were stashed aboard the International Space Station,
00:39where some very disciplined astronauts didn't drink them.
00:43These bottles of Bordeaux sat in storage, subjected to a low-gravity environment and increased cosmic radiation for more than a year,
00:51before returning home in a SpaceX capsule.
00:54Scientists know that the stresses of space accelerate genetic changes in humans and animals.
00:59With this experiment, the private company Space Cargo Unlimited wanted to see if time in orbit prematurely aged wine as well.
01:08Back on Earth, a panel of wine experts and scientists convened to find out.
01:13In a blind taste test, the panelists sipped a glass of the space-aged Bordeaux alongside a glass of the same vintage, which had never left Earth.
01:22According to panelist and wine writer Jane Anson, there was a clear difference.
01:27The space-aged wine tasted a bit more evolved than the terrestrial wine, she said, as if it had aged an extra two or three years during its time in space.
01:36If you want to put a review to the test, head over to Christie's.
01:39Their bottle of space-aged booze comes with a custom space-themed wine trunk, a bottle of terrestrial Petrus for comparison, and a corkscrew carved from a meteorite.
01:50This bundle is expected to sell for about a million dollars, and some of that money will be used to fund future space wine experiments by Space Cargo Unlimited.
01:59If that price is too rich for you, just be content in knowing that, for an entire year, there was a small cellar of fine French wine orbiting high over your head.
