Discover Tenerife wine that’s aged 18m under the Atlantic
Bodegas Monje in Tenerife is experimenting with an underwater aging process for their wine, submerging bottles 18 meters deep in the Atlantic Ocean. This niche method is part of a growing trend among winemakers seeking to influence flavor through ocean currents and darkness.
Why it matters
It explores innovative techniques in the food and beverage industry and the intersection of traditional winemaking with experimental science.
A diver tends Tenerife's underwater wine cellar. Photo / Bodega Monje
Tenerife is home to a niche winemaking method where bottles are aged 18m beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Dayna Camilleri Clarke goes in search of the world’s most extreme wine cellar
I’ve tasted wine in a lot of unlikely places, but never one that had commuted to the tasting via the seabed. Bodegas Monje sits in El Sauzal, on Tenerife’s north coast, with Mount Teide looming behind it in all its volcanic glory, and vines spilling down towards the Atlantic in front. It is, without exaggeration, one of the prettiest places I’ve been handed a wine list. But the knockout view isn’t really why people make the drive up here. They come for the bottle that spent five months living on the ocean floor.
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