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The idea of maturing wine on the seabed is not new. In recent decades, Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Italy and Croatia have been pioneers in this field. In the meantime, America, Chile, Australia and South Africa have also introduced this form of wine maturation. For some time now, Cartagena has made its mark on the development of 'underwater wines'. The city can proudly claim to have the largest underwater wine cellar in Europe. More than 7 kilometres off the coast, at a depth of 30 metres, lies a gigantic 'wine cellar' of 150 m2 with a capacity of 5 million bottles.
The city council expects that there will be many positive consequences from this record wine cellar. The province of Murcia owes part of its popularity to the reputation that the wine region has as an industry of allure. The new developments will undoubtedly attract even more wine lovers to the region. In addition, an artificial reef has been created on the site of the wine facility that will promote the diversity of life on the seabed. As is often the case with radical new developments, chance was also an important factor here. Two events played a major role in this case. The first was an Italian artist who had retrained as a wine merchant. Due to a lack of space in his wine cellar, he came up with the creative idea of maturing part of his stock at sea. The first wines were launched in 2001. Another important moment was the discovery of a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea in 2010. On board the ship that sank in 1880 were 168 bottles of champagne. Experts who examined the quality of the contents were pleasantly surprised. Their opinion was that the seabed offers optimum conditions for maturing champagne and wines. Important reasons for this are the fairly constant temperatures, the semi-darkness and the air pressure. During the construction of the underwater cellars, it has since been learned that this form of maturing wines has even more advantages over traditional storage, such as faster maturation, lower maintenance costs of the facility and reduced energy consumption. All this does not alter the fact that the new method is not aimed at the production of slobber wines. Wherever the underwater facilities appear, the wine production is aimed at the gourmet market and therefore the more expensive wines.
But of course every wine lover or enthusiast is welcome to take a boat tour to the location. There, explanations are given in both Spanish and English about the maturation process and the history of wine. Both white and red wines can be tasted. In this way, everyone can form an opinion about the difference in taste between the traditional and the new method. Judging from the reactions of many wine enthusiasts who compared the two maturation processes, there would be 'striking nuance differences'.
