WINETECH Technical Yearbook 2021

smoke/ash

bruised apple

mouldy apple nutty

apple cider

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coriander

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winds, strong ocean currents, treacherous reefs, inaccurate maps and unsophisticated navigational technology often proved too much for the navigators of the old days. The cargoes recovered with the help of marine archaeologists can offer some insight into the life and times of the travellers and crew. Contributing researchers: Astrid Buica, Cody Williams, Valeria Pan- zeri, Jaco Boshoff and Wendy Black. REFERENCES Jeandet, P., Heinzmann, S.S., Roullier- Gall, C., et al. , 2015. Chemical messages in 170-year-old champagne bottles from the Baltic Sea: Revealing tastes from the past. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(19): 5893-5898. Doi: 10.1073/ pnas.1500783112. Londesborough, J., Dresel, M., Gibson, B., et al. , 2015. Analysis of beers from an 1840s shipwreck. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 63(9): 2525-2536. Doi: 10.1021/ jf5052943.

3 vinegar

0 1 2 3 medicinal

flour

0 1 2 3 4

wet chalk

raisin

flowers

dried meat

wood shavings

dusty

rotten wood

wood

2

marmalade

vinegar

bourbon cask

popcorn

1

biscuit

sandalwood

mould

balsamic glaze

0

honey

acetone

vanilla

vinegar

smoke/ash

bruised apple

bitter almond

paint

caramel/butter

earthy/iodine

flint

coriander

mouldy apple nutty

apple cider

cooked apple

icing sugar

salty

flour

dusty FIGURE 3. Aroma profile of some of the wine samples recovered from SS Maori (sample M, top left) and HMS Colebrooke (samples M68, top right and M64, bottom). wood shavings

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0 1 2 3 medicinal

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wines transferred into new bottles for stor- age have maintained these wine-like char- acters. The samples left in the original bottles have been exposed to the storage environment, because the corks shrunk and allowed air (and contaminants?) ingress. The samples with the profiles presented in figure 2 are some of the more wine-like ones. The description of the samples was generally quite a challenging exercise even for experienced researchers. The wines were very different from each other and balsamic glaze bruised apple coriander flint smoke/ash mould 0 1 2 3 4 flour dusty popcorn bourbon cask wood shaving

from what we are used to smelling in a wine, even a very old one. TAKE-HOME MESSAGE Unlike other work where the source and/or type of beverage recovered from shipwrecks were known, and with a limited volume of sample, we could still obtain results providing interesting “chemical snapshots” of old wines using advanced analytical and spectroscopic techniques. Combining new technology platforms in analytical chemistry can provide valuable insight vinegar earthy/iodine salty icing sugar caramel/butter vanilla

into the composition of wines recovered from shipwrecks with the help of maritime archaeologists. Including analyses such as X-ray diffraction on the bottles, can assist in tracing more information about the sources of heavy metal content and possibly even the origin of the wines. Even in the harshest and strangest conditions, some wines still survive. SUMMARY The Southern tip of Africa is littered with the wrecks of hundreds of ships. Gale force

For more information, contact Astrid Buica at astrid.buica@gmail.com.

vanilla

vinegar

caramel/butter

earthy/iodine

icing sugar

salty

WINETECH TECHNICAL YEARBOOK 2021 | 99