Island hopes undersea wine aging will boost economy

A Tokyo agency is hoping that the growing old of wine at an undersea cellar off Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture will assist revive the native financial system.

Underwater growing old of wine is a extensively held observe world wide, as submerged situations — constant and comparatively cool temperatures, greater stress and the absence of extreme gentle — are appropriate for wine to gracefully mature.

However the course of is “not often practiced in Japan,” mentioned Yui Moritani, the 38-year-old president of a public relations agency in Tokyo that started the venture.

In late January, about 500 bottles of European wine in chrome steel cages had been lowered to the seafloor at a depth of about 20 meters off the city of Setouchi within the southern a part of the island.

The agency opened a restaurant serving wine within the city in November.

Bottles of wine are submerged within the Oshima Strait off Setouchi for maturation on Jan. 30.
| Kyodo

A lot of the bottles submerged in January will probably be left within the sea till June to be served for patrons in July. A few of them will probably be aged longer to determine the precise maturation interval for optimum style.

The corporate additionally plans to supply an underwater growing old service for wine bottles entrusted by prospects sooner or later.

Moritani additionally hopes the venture will enhance the setting, with the underwater wine cellar serving as a synthetic reef to draw fish and a seaweed mattress, which is able to take up carbon dioxide.

A diver who helped sink the wine bottles mentioned that water within the space is hotter than typical temperatures for growing old wine, measuring 21 levels Celsius on Jan. 30, however that there’s a advantage in that wine can age quickly in such situations.

“Probably the most vital problem is whether or not wine could make it by summer time within the heat water,” Moritani mentioned.