This Amarone from Wine of the Sea was originally crafted in Italy before aging off the coast of ... [+]
For the first time, sea-aged wines are being exported to and sold legally in the United States.
A happy accident led to the founding of Adriatic Shell/Wine of the Sea company.
Marko Dusevic, who owns an oyster farm off the coast of Croatia, had a friend who was a winemaker visit him. “He brought me some very good wines, and it was the end of the summer, and I had some bottles left,” Dusevic says. “I didn’t want to leave them in my (summer) home, where somebody could break in because the house is in the wilderness. So, I put them in some oyster bags in the sea, and I forgot about them.”
“A year later, I found the bottles, and they were looking good, and I brought them to my friend,” he says. “My friend tells me ‘These wines are different.’ I said ‘What do you mean?’ He says ‘They’re not like the original wines I have in storage here at the winery.’”
That accident led Dusevic to create Adriatic Shell/Wine of the Sea, a company that exclusively ages fine European wines in the Adriatic Sea. That was ten years ago, and now, for the first time, they’re being exported to the United States in a larger quantity by BZ Consortium, a small wine importing business based in Waupaca, WI.
The wines - and the exporting of them to the United States - is a long time coming. Dusevic first began experimenting with aging of wines in the sea a decade ago, experimenting and making meticulous research to figure out which varietals age best, as well as the best methods and time for aging them in the sea. Today, Wine of the Sea age 15 different varietals, and they age in the sea for up to two years. The wines are aged at a sea depth of 75 feet, and they’re aged in special cages, and the resulting wine bottles have coral growing on them.
“We are not the only company aging wines in the sea, but we are by far, the most experienced and knowledgeable,” he says.
Wines of the Sea also is the first and only company to be granted permission from the FDA to export their wines to the United States, and it took several years to receive this permission. Last year, BZ Consortium imported the first batch of 500 bottles from Wines of the Sea, and they sold out too quickly for the company to even promote them. This year, they’ve imported 6,000 bottles, and 1,500 have already been sold in the month since they’ve arrived.
What sea aging does is “put stress on the wines” with the pressure and the movement of the water speeds up the aging process. “This project is about bringing wine to its fullest potential,” says Anthony Curko, brand ambassador for Wines of the Sea in New York and New Jersey.
“The underwater aging accelerates the aging process, says Domagoj Skuliber, general manager of Adriatic Shell/Winesof the Sea. “The acidity drops slightly faster, and the flavors go from primary to secondary and tertiary faster. The wines aged in the sea seem to have been aged for three to five years more than wines aged on land.”
Curko explains that he first tasted a wine that was aged by Wines of the Sea five years ago. “It was a Barolo, and from its young age, I expected it to be super acidic,” he says. “It wasn’t. It was soft and round and elegant. It’s really something different.”
The wines themselves retail between $150 to $200, and Wine of the Sea ages both red and white varietals. Not every wine varietal can be aged in the sea, Dusevic says. “The wines have to have just the right amount of acidity and tannins, but what we’re really looking for is the structure and how the acidity and tannins work in synergy,” Dusevic says.
Right now, Wine of the Sea are available in 13 different states, and the company has plans for expansion and growth.
