What Does a $6000 Bottle of Wine Taste Like After a Year In Space?

PolygamousRanchKid writes: In November 2019, twelve bottles of Chateau Petrus 2000—a rare and expensive red wine from Bordeaux, France—hitched a ride to the International Space Station aboard a Northrop Grumman spacecraft. It was followed several months later by 320 snippets of grapevine, or canes, of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. For a year, both viticultural products were exposed to the unique stress of the station’s microgravity environment.

On January 1st, the wine bottles and canes returned to earth aboard a SpaceX cargo vessel, and were hurried back to the Institute of Vine and Wine Science (ISVV) at the University of Bordeaux. Researchers have already begun analyzing the changes they underwent while in orbit, and during a press conference on Wednesday, revealed their preliminary findings. They had also, of course, tasted the wine.

Scientists at the European startup behind the experiment, Space Cargo Unlimited (SCU), hope that observing a difference in the structural makeup of both the wines and canes, compared with the control samples that remained on earth, will contribute to an SCU program called Mission WISE. That initiative is aimed at harnessing the potential of microgravity to produce agricultural products resistant to climate change.