French researchers are studying dozens of wine bottles and hundreds of vines that have returned to Earth after staying in space. Expensive Bordeaux wine was launched towards the International Space Station in November 2019, followed by 320 vines with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon in March of last year. In January, SpaceX Dragon brought its wine and sticks back to Earth.
The wine was blindly tasted and approved by twelve French wine connoisseurs. The wines that remained on Earth tasted “a little smaller” but “both were beautiful,” said the wine expert and editor at decanter Jane Anson for the Associated Press.
The weightlessness of the wine gave the wine a different color and the stay in the room changed the taste. “Wine has a brick color,” the CEO said Nicolas Gaume of Space Cargo Unlimited, the company behind the experiment. “The taste is unique.”
The aim of the experiment is to make wine grapes more resistant to climate change. In space, grapes were exposed to microgravity and heavy radiation. For example, they must develop their armament properties against global warming.
