Beneficial Effect Of Moving Water On The Wine!

For somewhere cool and dark to lay down your wine, skip the cave and head for the ocean.

- Korinne Munson

ON A RECENT Saturday morning, two very different boats set out from Santa Barbara Harbor, both headed for the same destination over a kilometre offshore. On board an 85ft custom catamaran with etched crystal windows and a polished, double-wide wood bar, the guests were a mixture of preppy-chic locals and well-heeled Los Angeles types dressed in limited-edition athleisure collaborations. The other boat, a working commercial fishing vessel, was loaded with gear and a team of divers in thick wet suits.

Leading the dive team was Emanuele Azzaretto, founder, along with Jordane Andrieu and Todd Hahn, of Ocean Fathoms, a California company that for the last year had been ageing a cache of 1,800 bottles of 2016 Santa Ynez Sangiovese on the ocean floor, about 20m down. Once retrieved, guests on the catamaran were invited for an unusual tasting, comparing bottles from the same vintage – some aged conventionally, the others laid down in the dark, cold waters that Ocean Fathoms calls “nature’s perfect cellar”.