Spanish Winemaker Raises Albariño Bottles After 15 Years Underwater

A group led by Spanish winemaker Raúl Pérez recovered bottles of Albariño from the Arousa estuary on Wednesday after more than 15 years of underwater aging, in an event in Galicia that brought together wine specialists, food industry figures and guests from Spain and Britain.

The bottles, from Pérez’s Albariño wine “Sketch,” had been kept at a depth of about 20 meters, according to the organizers. They were raised from the seabed near mussel rafts off Cambados, in the Rías Baixas area of northwestern Spain, using an aquaculture support vessel equipped with a crane and a metal cage that held the wine during its time underwater.

The operation offered a rare look at a long-running experiment that Pérez began in 2011. Organizers said the bottles had remained in Atlantic waters since then, exposed to constant darkness, stable temperatures, pressure and the movement of the currents. A small group left Cambados harbor early in the day aboard a sailboat and the support vessel to witness the recovery.

Pérez said the Galician estuaries provide conditions that differ from those of a conventional cellar and can shape how a wine develops over time. He said the constant motion of the water, the absence of light and the pressure at that depth can alter and intensify the sensory profile of the Albariño.

Those claims were tested onboard after the bottles were brought up and opened. Organizers said there had been uncertainty about the outcome because of the risk of excessive salinity or problems with the cork after such a long period underwater. They said the wine was in good condition and described the result as exceptional.

According to Pérez, the wine showed greater aromatic complexity, with saline notes layered over the fruit and floral character associated with Albariño. Discarlux, the company behind the event, said the wine had also gained volume, freshness, smoothness and balance on the palate while retaining greener tones despite the passage of time.

Several bottles were tasted during the trip, including two that had been submerged since 2011 and others that had been placed underwater in 2020 and 2021. The bottles recovered from the estuary are not intended for sale, organizers said, and are part of a private enological project rather than a commercial release.

The event was presented as a meeting point between wine, the sea and high-end Galician food. After the recovery, the Albariño was served aboard the vessel with Galician ox chops prepared by Michelin-starred chef Ugo Chan. The pairing joined two products that the organizers described as symbols of the region’s food culture: Rías Baixas Albariño and Galician beef.

Discarlux manager Xosé Portas said the meat came from an animal sold last spring for more than €14,000 and had undergone 90 days of aging. Discarlux is a meat distributor that, according to the company, received the 2026 Galicia Gastronomy Prize.

Among those attending were Luis Gutiérrez, the Parker guide’s taster for Spain; Rodri Méndez of Forjas del Salnés; Nemanja Borjanovic, owner of the IBAI grill restaurant in London and Mountain Valley, a distributor of Galician meat in the United Kingdom; content creator Toby Inskip, known online as Eating with Tod, who has 2.5 million Instagram followers; and Spanish television personalities Roberto Vilar and Carlos Latre.

The day on the water was the final stage of a broader itinerary built around traditional Galician food production. Organizers said the visitors had spent the previous two days learning about livestock farming and rural production methods before traveling into the estuary for the wine recovery.

Pérez is one of Spain’s best-known winemakers and has drawn international attention in the past for top scores awarded to wines from Bierzo, his home region. In Arousa, however, the focus was on a very different question: whether a white wine left for years under the sea could emerge intact and changed in ways that a conventional cellar could not produce.

Wednesday’s recovery did not settle that debate in scientific terms, but it did produce a result that the participants considered notable. The bottles were lifted in full view of the guests, opened on board and evaluated immediately, turning a private aging trial into a public demonstration of a method that remains unusual even in wine regions known for experimentation.

The setting also gave the project a strong local identity. The Arousa estuary is one of Galicia’s main maritime and shellfish-producing areas, and the submerged wine was stored in waters better known for mussel farming than for long-term bottle aging. By using that environment as a cellar, the organizers framed the project as both a wine experiment and a showcase for regional products tied closely to the Atlantic.

For the guests, the journey combined technical curiosity with promotion of premium food and wine. For Pérez and Discarlux, it was also a chance to show that a bottle placed underwater in 2011 had survived long enough to be opened, tasted and discussed more than a decade later.