Visitors to this year’s London International Wine Fair will be given an exclusive viewing of one of the world’s oldest Champagne bottles, which lay undiscovered for more than 200 years under the Baltic Sea.

The bottle of Champagne, one of 168 discovered off the coast of the Åland archipelago (between Sweden and Finland) last year, is being transported to the Fair by the Portuguese Cork Association, which will be showcasing the bottle at the ViniPortugal, stand E10.

The Champagne, sealed with natural cork, was pronounced to be ‘very much alive and remarkably fresh’ by Essi Avellan MW, editor of Finland’s FINE Champagne magazine, who tasted them last September. The bottle in question has since been resealed with another natural cork stopper developed by specialist consultants to the exact specifications of the antique bottles. The majority of the bottles are still immersed under water in a secret and secure location.

Divers discovered the Champagne last July at a depth of about 50 metres in the southern part of Åland’s outer archipelago. The ship is believed to have sunk in the early 1800s.

Initially, the divers took one bottle from the shipwreck and were surprised when its contents were intact. Sommelier Ella Grüssner Cromwell-Morgan tasted the first bottle and said it had: “very ripe fruit, tones of golden raisins and a clear aroma of tobacco. And, despite the fact that it was so amazingly old, there was freshness to the wine. It wasn’t debilitated in any way; rather it had a clear acidity which reinforced the sweetness.”

Determining the age of the Champagne and its origin has not been a simple undertaking, and there is no archive reference of the ship’s origin or sinking. Archaeologists have concluded that some of the bottles come from the Champagne House Maison Juglar, which had ceased production by the end of the 1820s. Several bottles have also been identified as Veuve Clicquot from the branding of the corks, which feature a comet.

Experts have been amazed at how well preserved the Champagne is — that it tastes superb and has retained some of its fizz after some 200 years.

“It is exclusive Champagne of high class that has been brought up from the depths of the sea,” said Richard Juhlin, one of the world’s leading Champagne experts, at a recent Mariehamn event. “The two different types have a nice freshness and good length in the mouth in common.”

Carlos de Jesus, of the Portuguese Cork Association said the tasting notes from the Champagne experts were a tribute to natural cork as a closure over the centuries.

He said: “The fact that the precious liquid in these bottles has been preserved at the bottom of the sea for more than 200 years stands as testimony to the unique ability of natural cork to protect the Champagnes and wines of this world”.

The Åland Government has announced plans to auction some of the bottles this summer and the prices achieved could be some of the highest ever recorded for  the sale of single bottles of Champagne.