There was an unusual news item that caught my eye today.
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| Farmers in Gradesnica Unearthed French WWI Cognac |
Hidden treasure of a non glittering kind ….. Booze!
It seems that Macedonian villagers have been unearthing bottles of vintage cognac from World War 1 in their fields. Surprisingly it is not only drinkable, but also valuable at about 5,000 euros (£3,360 $6720) per bottle, so the hunt for more bottles of the elixir of the gods has drawn people from all over Europe.
The bottles were from supplies held by French troops stationed in the region to help Serbia during WWI, and were seemingly buried by German shell fire that killed the soldiers who had hoarded the cache, but left the bottles apparently unbroken.
This kind of strange find reminded me of the old Whiskey Galore movie which was based upon the events surrounding the sinking of ship full of whiskey off the Hebrides. The real ship that sunk in Feb 5 1941 - during WWII - was the SS Politician.
Having left Liverpool two days earlier heading for Jamaica, it sank outside Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in bad weather, containing 250,000 bottles of whisky. The locals gathered as many bottles as they could, before the proper tax authorities arrived, and even today, bottles are found in the sand or in the sea every other year.
Old wine often has a market, and even newish bottles can become expensive and 200 yr old bottles occasionally make the news with a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem from 1787 was purchased by an American client for the record breaking sum of 90,000 US dollars, breaking the previous record of 56,000 dollars set in 1985.
But they have a bit to go to beat the two-millennia-old bottle of light green rice wine excavated in northern China which may have passed its expiry date but is still potable according to the archaeologists who found it in Xian — home to the famous terracotta warriors — who have stored it in a glass container for further study, Xinhua news agency reported.
The rice wine, which is so old that Roman emperor Julius Caesar could have tasted it, has "high purity, marking a mature wine-making technology," Sun Fuxi, a Xian archaeologist said. The bronze wine jar, adorned with a phoenix head, was the best preserved and largest quantity of ancient wine ever found in China, according to the agency.
Hmm, I think I’ll stick to Mr Samuel Smiths Best Bitter established in 1758. That’s old enough for me.
The bottles were from supplies held by French troops stationed in the region to help Serbia during WWI, and were seemingly buried by German shell fire that killed the soldiers who had hoarded the cache, but left the bottles apparently unbroken.
This kind of strange find reminded me of the old Whiskey Galore movie which was based upon the events surrounding the sinking of ship full of whiskey off the Hebrides. The real ship that sunk in Feb 5 1941 - during WWII - was the SS Politician.
Having left Liverpool two days earlier heading for Jamaica, it sank outside Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in bad weather, containing 250,000 bottles of whisky. The locals gathered as many bottles as they could, before the proper tax authorities arrived, and even today, bottles are found in the sand or in the sea every other year.
Old wine often has a market, and even newish bottles can become expensive and 200 yr old bottles occasionally make the news with a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem from 1787 was purchased by an American client for the record breaking sum of 90,000 US dollars, breaking the previous record of 56,000 dollars set in 1985.
But they have a bit to go to beat the two-millennia-old bottle of light green rice wine excavated in northern China which may have passed its expiry date but is still potable according to the archaeologists who found it in Xian — home to the famous terracotta warriors — who have stored it in a glass container for further study, Xinhua news agency reported.
The rice wine, which is so old that Roman emperor Julius Caesar could have tasted it, has "high purity, marking a mature wine-making technology," Sun Fuxi, a Xian archaeologist said. The bronze wine jar, adorned with a phoenix head, was the best preserved and largest quantity of ancient wine ever found in China, according to the agency.
Hmm, I think I’ll stick to Mr Samuel Smiths Best Bitter established in 1758. That’s old enough for me.
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