I know that millionaires frequently pay thousands of dollars for bottles of wine from the cellars of famous people-I remember a bottle of Thomas Jefferson’sBordeaux fetching several thousand dollars at auction, a few years back. What I would like to know is: has any wine from ancient times survived? Say from a greek shipwrek, or a sealed bottle in an Egyptian tomb? Would wine several centuries old be still drinkable?
I recall that and ancient roman villa was found in an area of Turkey that was about to be flooded by a dam-was a Roman wine cellar found there?
Finally, what is the oldest modern wine available? I know of a local restaurant that has a few bottles of port from the 1920’s, and they also had some 1901 cgnac (at $75.00 a shot!)
If a certain mold gets to any wine, it will turn to vinegar. Assumable, if the container is actually 100% airtight, it might still be drinkable, though I don’t know what thousands of years of aging will do to a bottle of wine.
bacteria 
Count me into the list of people who would like to find out.
In all seriousness bottles that old or from the cellars of famous people are more valuble as collectors items than as foodstuffs. As long as you don’t open that bottle of Dom from Ben Franklins cellar people will pay dearly for it because it “might” be.
I do not believe that any Roman or Ancient Greek wine was stored in a way that would let it survive to the present day, even as something undrinkable. Wine was stored in large clay jars called amphorae and I believe they were sealed with wax; certainly not with cork. The wine would last for some time; we know this because “vintage” wine was mentioned by ancient poets. But since wax doesn’t last forever, when that’s gone, the wine/vinegar/whatever would evaporate, so it would take pretty unusual circumstances for any liquid to remain in an amphora today. Plus an amphora is breakable, and itself needed to be sealed with a medium like pitch to make it watertight (I think I’m remembering that correctly; I don’t have a source to check at the moment), so I would think most containers were already lost through breakage, and then the lack of airtightness would come into play and allow it to evaporate.
FWIW, ancient wine was probably pretty nasty by today’s standards. They usually drank it watered down, with proportions that sometimes featured more water than wine, so they don’t seem to have been too crazy about the taste. Drinking unwatered wine seems to have been like taking shots today; what you did when you wanted to drown your sorrows.
If bacteria get in, it’s vinegar.
If dry air caused the cork to shrivel and let Oxygen in, it’s dead.
If it’s been stored in too hot or too cold of conditions, it’s dead.
If it’s been stored in bright light, it’s dead.
If it’s a wine that was never meant to be aged, then, well, it’s not gonna be much good at all.
Even if it’s been stored in the perfect conditions, old or ancient wine is a crap shot. A significant proportion of the bottles have just… gone bad. However, when you get a good one, then it can be, for a oenophile, an out of body experience.
Contrary to popular beleif, (at least popular on this board), some people do buy old wines just so they can drink them. Many french wine lovers quest ardently for pre-phylloxera wines, to taste the wine before the vines were “contaminated” by american stock. Although many restaurant sommeliers stuff their lists with the most expensive wines they can find, solely for prestige, rest assured someone is buying them. There’s a lot of money out there. However, even the deepest pockets and cellars only go back some four hundered years, tops.
The typical way to describe a very aged wine is mature. Now, to a non-winesnob, this might mean very little. However, it is quite accurate. The flavors mature and mellow, gaining significantly greater depth and richness of flavor. Many fine wines also develop a heavier mouthfeel with age.
Now, as for the Port you mention in your post, serious Port affecionados would tell you that 1920 Port is just about old enough now to be taken seriously. Fortified wines like Port last FOREVER. Ports from the last decades of the 1800s aren’t particularly rare.
Now, the oldest wine I’ve ever partaken of was a 1961 Chateu Lafite-Rothschild. It was nothing short of spectacular. Mature, complex, and just wonderful. Luckily, I was not footing the bill.
I was close… What I do remember is that the Goosneck bottle was designed to prevent Pasteur’s wine from going bad 
I recall reading some time ago that Jacques Cousteau, in one of his expeditions, brought up from the bottom of the Mediterranean some amphorae that still contained wine. He opened one and drank from it, but I have no idea if it was still good (after all, why not? no air was getting in) or turned to vinegar. IIRC this was a Greek ship, over 2000 years old. Or am I misremembering something here?
peepthis
IIRC the wine had become seawater due to miniscule holes within the amphorea. Over the years the wine had slowly seeped out and the water had seeped in.
Other than the wreck that caused the ship to go down in the first place (as well as the plummet to the bottom), the bottom of the sea isn’t a bad place for some wines to age. It’s dark, it likely won’t be disturbed, the temperature is consistent (though quite a bit too cold)…and your teenage kids won’t steal it to take to some party. Auctions of finds from shipwrecks aren’t terribly uncommon (please don’t ask for a cite, I’m only recalling something I remember reading)
banks
An associate of mine recently bought two bottles of Lafite from the 20’s. He was originally planning on buying only one…but it fell from his hands and shattered on the floor. Decorum kept him from slurping it off the floor, a foolish excuse in my view.
Is there any type of wine made today that would taste like the Ancient wines might? I mean are they made to roughtly the same specifications?
Well, peepthis, I’ve never heard of Mr Cousteau recovering wine amphorae with wine still in them. IIRC, clay amphorae were normally sealed on the outside with pitch, and the cap was sealed with wax. Although this may have created some degree of air/watertight-ness, I very much doubt that the jars could have survived underwater for any significant amount of time.
Now, there are salvage divers out there who spend huge amounts of time and money trying to pull bottles from the early 1900s out of shipwrecks. Even these are normally foiled by the sensitivity of wine and the conditions of the seafloor. A good example is the RMS Republic, an ocean liner that had yeilded many many bottles of old wine, very few of which are saleable or even palateable, as described in the below link.
http://www.rms-republic.com/in_the_news/ws10_31_87.html
If bottles couldn’t make it, I really doubt amphorae could. Some bottles do make it, admittedly. Mainly champaign. But I really think the wine in the amphorae wouldn’t stand a chance.
and Mac Rame, decorum nothing. I’d be going back and slurping the floor daily. I at least hope, for his sake, that the surviving bottle turns out well.
Well for the pitch flavor you can try Greek retsina, but I don’t think it’s all still made with ancient methods, just aged in containers with pitch…
Jaques Cousteau wasn’t the only one who found ancient greek wine. I saw a discovery channel episode where Robert Ballard, the man who found the titanic, also found some ancient wine preserved in amphora. He too drank of it, He poured out one of the amphorae, the color of the liquid was still red, and when he drank of it, he did not put on a sour face or spit it out. So I have to think that some amphorae are made better than others, and some wine has lasted until today.
I did the customary google search for links, but I came up with very little info. Here is what I found if anyone wants to read it:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/csr/comphist/ballard.html
Ficer67
[Steve Martin]
Waiter! This is old wine! Take it away and bring us some fresh wine!
[/Steve Martin]
Sorry. Somebody had to do it.
When the Cousteau society visited our college, they recounted the story about the 2000- year old wine. They stated that, being Frenchmen, what did you expect them to do with it? Other than that, they said it tasted as expected- “like 2000-year-old wine.”
Did a little research to clarify a couple of open points…
It looks like your chances of finding drinkable shipwrecked wine in a glass bottle is pretty poor though it does happen. Should some be found, though, it can still be tasty:
“It was nice and cold when we brought it up. We didn’t expect it to be good, but we drank some of it and it tasted excellent,” he says. “In fact, I got a little buzz out of it.” (from banks’ article above)
As to whether or not the amphoraes could manage the ocean depths, it appears doubtful. One reason given is that the wine stopper was unable to withstand the changes in pressure during the fall to the ocean floor. This then resulted in the seawater entering the amphorae and spoiling the wine (from a dive journal here](http://www.diveturkey.com/soa/english/august25_2001en.htm) ). I imagine the more modern construction of corks (particularly for champagne and other sparkling wines) results in a better ability to withstand some of this pressure.
As to what did wine from a couple millennium ago taste like: un-aged retsina (see pdf here ).
At the dive journal above there is an interesting mention of how the ancients cut their wine. Apparently, some enjoyed mixing it with seawater .
So, if anyone wants to sample some do-it-yourself Ancient Greek wine, buy a bottle of retsina, add an equal portion of water, mix in a teaspoon or two of salt, …and promptly throw up. I’ll stay with the cheap stuff I can afford.
banks The worst part about the 20’s Lafite is that he gave it away as a New Year’s gift without even getting a taste. I believe he broke at least one of the laws of the Oenophile’s Oath.
Just another salvage anecdote: Project Jonkoping.
Good Holy Bacchus, Batman.
HE GAVE IT AWAY???
How do I get on his gift list?
WITHOUT EVEN A TASTE???
Sweet mother of grapes.
Your associate is a madman. Please, please, please tell me it was not a 1928 Lafite. My god, it if was… HE BROKE ONE AND GAVE THE OTHER AWAY.
Ok, i’m going to stop hyperventilating now.
How old can you fing cognacs and scotches? Like I say, my favorite restaurant had some 1901-vintage cognac. I wonder how such a great age would affect the flavor?
banks
It could have been. Don’t really want to know myself as it is sacreligious enough as is.
Trust me, I wish I too could be on his gift list. He is one of those who actually made quite a few dollars during the most recent boom and now spends it willy-nilly and without a care in the world. A true bastard, that one (not that I’m jealous…well, maybe a tad).
ralph124c
Once out of the cask cognacs and their kin no longer age. I believe this has to do with higher alcohol contents but do not recall. The ratings (VS, VSOP, etc) give some indication as to the number of years the cognac spent in the cask. Averages seem to be anywhere from 2 1/2 years on up to 50 years. After that, it’s to the bottle.
If you go to Christie’s you can find some pictures of some old wines. I noticed a 1784 Lafite went for ~25k GBP. I petition that the members of the SDMB pony up some cash for banks and I to do a taste test to see if it is still good.