In 1916 the two-masted Swedish Schooner Jönköping left the Swedish port of Gävle with destination Finland, which was at that time a part of the Russian empire. The ship was loaded with 4400 bottles of Heidsieck Champagne Gout Americain 1907 —a sparkling legend in the world of Champagne- , 17 barrels of wine and 67 barrels of Cognac. Plus some railroad material which made the boat a target for military operations. And that's what happened: the Jönköping was sunk by the German U-boat U22 near the coast of Finland.
In 1997 the ship was found at a depth of 64 meters and salvage started. As the temperature at that depth is around 4 degrees Celsius with complete darkness, the bottles were expected to be perfectly conserved and to be in perfect drinking condition. In 1997 and 1998 the bottles were salvaged and samples concluded that most of the bottles were indeed of high quality. The cognac barrels were damaged by seawater and undrinkable.
In 1998 and 1999 the bottles were auctioned and we bought a few for our Best of Wines cellar, especially since our company was founded in 1907. Over the years we have drunk these bottles at special occasions, until we had only one bottle left.
When our friend and wine writer Rene Gabriel visited us, we decided to drink the last bottle. When we opened the bottle, the loud 'pop' indicated that the bottle still had the right "bubbles".
In the beginning the champagne had some glutamate and iron tones, then the nose changed to nutty contours, showed white chocolate notes, light tobacco and raisins. Very balanced and quite finely and sweetly ending with notes of roast almond and smoky notes. At more than 100 years old, a perfectly preserved champagne experience!
To read more about the history behind this extraordinary bottles, read our blog about Unicorn wines.
