2020-05-31_Wine_Spectator

116 WINE SPECTATOR • MAY 31, 2020

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The 1 , 590 - liter, 2. 6 - ton, 9. 8 - foot über-

bottle had been the proud, record-

breaking centerpiece of the dining room

at Engel Wang Fu, a Chinese restaurant

in the Austrian town of Lustenau. But

recently, its contents threatened to

become a record-breaking red-wine spill

after the behemoth began leaking

profusely, with 200 liters on the floor in

short order. It was an emergency

demanding no fewer than six local firemen,

who arrived with sandbags, food hoses,

pressurized tanks, an industrial-duty spiral

auger drill and a valiant mission to try to

save the remaining wine. —Collin Dreizen

“PROSECCO POLICE”

TRY TO DECLINE

SPARKLING WINE “ATM”

When Vagabond Wines opened

up a bar in an old bank space in

London, they decided to set up an

Automated Prosecco Machine

(APM) outside to dispense bubbly

to passersby.

But the APM’s unorthodox pack-

aging earned an error message ac-

cording to Italian authorities’ strict

guidelines. “The ‘Prosecco police,’

which I refer to the [regional wine]

consortium [as], very quickly and

aggressively sent us a cease and

desist with all sorts of malicious

threats,” the bar’s managing di-

rector told us. At press time, it had

become simply an Automated

Bubbles Machine. —S.Z.

What kind of wine were Roman big-timers—from Pliny the Elder to Julius Caesar himself—knocking back,

back in the day? It was strong, it was sweet and it just might have been ... salty. A team of researchers recently

presented evidence that some of the most prized wines of antiquity were made from grapes submerged in bas-

kets in the Mediterranean before crush, a 2,500-year-old technique for flavoring and washing the grapes.

Winemaker Antonio Arrighi got word of it and decided to set aside a few bunches for an experiment.

“At the end of a conference where [the lead researcher] spoke about this old Greek wine, I approached

him,” Arrighi told us. “He told me that nobody has tried to repeat this

experiment in 2,500 years, and I told him, ‘I’ll do it on Elba island,’ and

our adventure started.”

The five-day sea bath 10 meters below the surface was no lark:

Soaking the grapes removed the waxy bloom that develops on

their skins, which allowed them to sun-dry more quickly before

crush, preserving some fresh flavors and aromas in the wine.

After (land-)aging for a year, the inaugural 2018 vintage, called

Nesos, produced 40 bottles. —Shawn Zylberberg

After 2 , 500 Years, Underwater Winemaking Technique Revived

10-Foot-Tall Bottle

Erupts in Enormous

Red-Wine Flood

Grapes are packed into

baskets to be soaked in

the Mediterranean.

The looted cellar of Formel B

restaurant in Copenhagen

Wine Thieves Bust Open Cellar,

Steal $ 250 , 000 Worth of DRC

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Two

recent cellar burglaries have shaken the Copenhagen

restaurant world, with thieves lifting dozens of rare Bur-

gundy wine treasures.

Michelin-starred Formel B was the victim of the big-

ger heist when its 3 , 000 - bottle cellar was literally bro-

ken into via an adjacent wineshop: Thieves hammered

through a brick wall and stole 63 bottles, worth between

$ 200 , 000 and $ 250 , 000. Restaurant co-owner Rune

Jochumsen told us it seemed like the handiwork of pros.

“They didn’t break anything or crash bottles, so they

were not idiots in that way.” He added that “[the] rob-

bery was only specific to DRC, Leroy, Liger-Belair and

[premier cru] Cros Parantoux.” —S.Z.

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