San Francisco Frontiers - Legendary 130-year-old French wine restored after decades under Czech castle floor

The bottles of Chateau d'Yquem -- one of the world's most expensive, highly-prized sweet white wines -- are a part of a collection of 136 bottles discovered at the western Czech castle of Becov nad Teplou in the 1980s, slated to go on display in the future.

The collection once belonged to the noble Beaufort-Spontin family, who left the old Czechoslovakia hastily at the end of the war when they were suspected of having collaborated with the Nazis.

The wine spent decades hidden under the floorboards of the castle chapel alongside the shrine of St Maurus before communist secret police found them in 1985.

But while the shrine was taken to Prague at once to undergo extensive reconstruction before returning to Becov to be displayed in 2002, the wine was left where it was.

Ten years ago, it was rediscovered during stock-taking and a painstaking rescue operation began.

Chateau d'Yquem, from the Sauternes area of Bordeaux, led the way, taking care of their eight wines, made in 1892 and 1896.

"We tasted a very small quantity to be sure that, aromatically and in terms of balance on the palate and overall perception, the wine corresponded to a Chateau d'Yquem of that age," said the winery's cellar master Toni El Khawand.

Laboratory tests proved the wine was a real Chateau d'Yquem, and the winery could then replace the corks and fit the original bottles with capsules to protect them.

As the wine gradually gave way to oxygen, the winery had to re-bottle it, returning only five full original bottles to Becov as a result.

Speaking at a presentation of the reconditioned bottles, El Khawand said tasting the wine, which has survived owing to its high sugar content, was "a magical experience".

"What we're really doing when we open it is unveiling a time capsule. We pull out this cork that has sealed the liquid off from its surroundings and, in a way, from the passage of time," he told AFP.

- 'A liquid memory' -

"The wine impressed us with its freshness on the palate," he said. "It is very, very fresh, with an almost acidic freshness."

Relishing the wine's "great complexity", El Khawand singled out cedar, dried fruit, saffron, cinnamon and nutmeg aromas in the wine, coupled with "aromas more typical of a Chateau d'Yquem at this age: notes of chocolate, coffee, mocha, aromas of oud".

More recent vintages of Yquem sell for hundreds of dollars a bottle, and the Czech National Heritage Institute has put the value of the entire collection at around $5 million if sold at auction.

But El Khawand refused to give a financial estimate.

"First and foremost, it has moral and historical value," he said.

"It is a memory, ultimately -- a liquid memory, to be sure -- but it is a memory of all those who came before us, of the work that was done," El Khawand added.

No auction is on the cards for now -- instead, Becov is planning to exhibit all the bottles from the collection containing wine and cognac, including an 1899 Pedro Ximenez sherry and an 1892 port.

The castle has started a fundraising campaign for the new exhibition.

"If we raise the money, we will definitely want to do a more thorough analysis of the wines," said Katerina Nyvltova, the collections manager at Becov.

"And if we can recondition the rest, we'll definitely go for it," she told AFP.

B.Ramirez--SFF