Bordeaux-ver la lune: French wine returns from the space station after 12 months | Science

The International Space Station said goodbye Tuesday to 12 bottles of Bordeaux wine and hundreds of vine extracts that have spent a year orbiting the world in the name of science.

Wine and vines – and thousands of pounds of other equipment and research, including mice – swarm aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule Wednesday night in the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa.

French wine bottles – each bottle tucked into a steel cylinder to prevent breakage – remained corked aboard the orbiting laboratory.

None of the bottles will be opened until the end of February. This is when Space Cargo Unlimited, the company behind the experiments, will open a bottle or two for a tasting in Bordeaux by some of France’s greatest connoisseurs. Months of chemical testing will follow. Researchers are eager to see how space altered sedimentation and bubbles.

Agricultural science was the main focus, said Nicolas Gaume, CEO and co-founder of the company, although he admits it will be fun to taste the wine.

“Our goal is to find a solution to how we will have tomorrow an agriculture that is both organic and healthy and able to feed humanity, and we believe that space is the key,” said Gaume de Bordeaux.

With climate change, Gaume said agricultural products such as grapes will have to adapt to more difficult conditions. Through a series of space experiments, Space Cargo Unlimited hopes to learn the lessons learned from the stress of zero-gravity plants and translate them into more robust, resilient plants on Earth.

There is another advantage. La Gaume expects future explorers on the Moon and Mars to want to enjoy some of the pleasures of Earth. “Being French is part of life to have good food and good wine,” he told The Associated Press.

Gaume said private investors had helped fund the experiments. He declined to provide the cost of the project.

Wine made it to the space station in November 2019 aboard a Northrop Grumman supply ship. The 320 vine extracts of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, called canes in viticulture, were launched by SpaceX last March.