Twelve bottles of Bordeaux and hundreds of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon canes made it back to Earth Wednesday night 1/13/2021 when they splash-downed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida near Tampa. The wine was sent to the International Space Station by the Luxembourg startup Space Cargo Unlimited. The object of the experiment was to determine how aging in space would affect the wine. The wine will first be taste-tested by a panel of experts then subjected to chemical analysis to verify if any alterations in it’s aging occurred.

The vine clippings arrived at the space station aboard a different SpaceX mission in March 2020. The focus of the vine experiment was to observe how they respond to the stresses of weightlessness and use that information to develop hardier and more adaptable plants for use on earth and on future space missions.

As interesting as the experiments are what I find amazing is the restraint those astronauts showed being stuck in space with a case of Bordeaux for more than a year and not opening a single bottle! WOW! I salute their will power! LOL

SpaceX splashdown Photo Credit: NASA