19th Century Shipwreck Containing 100 Bottles of Champagne Found

Polish divers announced on Wednesday that they discovered last week off the Swedish coast in the Baltic Sea a 19th-century shipwreck filled with crates of champagne and ceramic pieces.

The head of the diving group “Baltictech,” Tomasz Stachura, told Agence France-Presse that “the wreck is completely filled with crates of champagne, mineral water, and porcelain.”

He specified that the contents found included about one hundred bottles of champagne.

Stachura recounted, “I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that we find one or two bottles… (but) finding such a quantity in a shipwreck has never happened to me before.”

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The discovery, largely coincidental, occurred about 20 nautical miles south of the Swedish island of Öland, according to the divers who have been searching for shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea for years.

Stachura said, “We were exploring new places out of sheer curiosity when we found this wreck.”

The discovery of mineral water in tightly sealed clay bottles helped date the ship’s sinking to the second half of the 19th century.

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Stachura explained, “We were able to take pictures of a seal on a bottle, which turned out to be from the German brand (Selters), and these seals had a specific shape at that time.”

The divers informed the Swedish regional authorities of their discovery.

They also indicated that the champagne would not be retrieved anytime soon due to administrative restrictions.