Andrew Heinzman
Ready for a taste of space? Christie’s auction house is selling bottle of Pétrus 2000 wine that spent 14 months in the International Space Station. Proceeds from the sale, which could total over $1 million, will go toward agricultural experiments in space.
Several bottles of Pétrus 2000 found their way into the ISS last year, and no, they weren’t smuggled onboard by astronauts. The box full of tempting, tasty bottles are actually the first of six agricultural experiments conducted by Space Cargo Unlimited, a European startup investigating how different environments affect plants.
But why start with wine? According to Space Cargo Unlimited, wine is sensitive to its environment during the aging process, and different aging environments can lead to different flavors. Because the ISS offers an Earth-like environment at near-zero gravity, it’s the perfect place to test what impact gravity has on the wine aging process.
While it sounds like a stretch (and might be a stretch), Space Cargo Unlimited claims that its research could help us understand how climate change on Earth will affect agriculture. As of now, the research has only proven that space wine tastes different from Earth wine—you’ll have to take a sommelier’s word for it.
Anyway, the space-aged wine is available for immediate purchase through Christie’s Private Sales. It comes with a unique Parisian Maison d’Arts Les Ateliers Victor trunk, a decanter, glasses, and a meteorite corkscrew. An Earth-aged bottle of Pétrus 2000 is also included for comparison’s sake.
Source: Christie’s via Nerdist
