Seawreck champagne passes taste test

The 168 bottles of champagne – of the brands Veuve Clicquot and the now defunct Juglar – was taken from a shipwreck discovered in July near the Aland Islands, between Sweden and Finland.

"All bottles are not intact but the majority are in good condition," said Britt Lundeberg, Aland's culture minister. The divers thought the bottles were from the 1780s but experts later dated them to the early 19th century.

Francois Hautekeur, of Veuve Clicquot's winemaking team, described it as "a toasted, zesty nose with hints of coffee, and a very agreeable taste with accents of flowers and lime-tree."

Some bottles will be sold at an auction, where they could fetch more than 50,000.