It’s not space rocks, but it’s running along the same lines.
How much more value does an object gain if it has been to space? And what if the fact that it orbited Earth for 14 months aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could improve that product?
French wine is the guinea pig here, with a bottle from space going on sale via Christie’s auction house’s private platform.
For connoisseurs, it’s a bottle of Pétrus 2000 made with merlot grapes in the Bordeaux region.
A Christie’s statement said it will execute this as an immediate sale, rather than an auction. The proceeds will be used to fund future space missions.
Tim Triptree, Christie’s international director of wine and spirits, told CNN the sale could bring $1 million (the same bottle, sans orbit, costs around $6,000).
“We’ve had quite a lot of inquiries,” he said. “This is just a unique piece of space history.”
The Christie’s press release touted the wine having been aged “in a carefully monitored and controlled environment, as part of a series of experiments undertaken by Space Cargo Unlimited, a one-of-a-kind European ‘New Space’ start-up.”
The bottle is one of 12 sent to space but, Triptree said, it’s the only one for sale; eight are for research, three were for tasting.
In March, a group of experts compared the wine with an Earth-bound version in a blind test.
One, wine writer Jane Anson, told CNN that space added about two to three years’ maturity to the drink.
“I found there was a difference in both color and aromatics and also in taste,” Anson said.
“It’s hard for me to say if it was better or worse. But it was definitely different,” she told the BBC.
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