Sea Change for French Wines

Normandy's tiny island-village of Mont Saint Michel is famous for its picturesque world heritage monastery and its hordes of tourists. But it could also soon be competing as the world's most exclusive underwater wine cellar.

Producers of some of France's top wines have been testing an alternative to the traditional cellar by dropping bottles 15 meters under water along the coast of the tidal island and leaving them to age.

This week one of France's oldest champagne houses, Louis Roederer, sent divers to place several dozen bottles of its Brut Premier on the seabed of Saint-Malo bay.

In a year's time experts will assess if it has matured with a different or better taste than in the traditional cellars of the Champagne region. In order to prevent the bottles being stolen by underwater thieves, the divers have hidden them.

The cellar master who thought up the idea has argued that the seabed off the Normany coast makes an ideal wine cellar, the temperature is a constant 10 degrees, the movement of the current gently rocks the bottles and there is no danger of damage from UV light.

In recent years wines including red Crozes-Hermitage, white Muscadet and white Burgundy have been aged under the Channel off Saint-Malo. But it is the first time champagne has been tried.

"It would appear that tides and the cold water had less of an impact on red wines than on white wines," said Herve Boucton, commercial director for Roederer.