I don’t spend an unhealthy amount of time on social media (cough) but a few days ago a video was doing the rounds (going viral as the kids say) that claimed as follows: ‘Original sealed bottle of wine retrieved from the titanic sold for $1.4M at auction’. Interesting…

For those old enough to remember, The Titanic was the luxury cruiser that set off on 10 April 1912 from Southhampton UK, with a young Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt Bukater aboard; this ill fated trip was to become the set of history’s greatest betrayal.

In 1985, the Titanic’s wreckage was discovered by a French-American research crew and remarkably, 73 years after Rose’s betrayal, some of the wine onboard was found still in tact. Amongst the identifiable champagne were bottles from Veuve Clicquot, Heidsieck and Juglar. (The Heart of the Ocean was never discovered.)

Back to the video, it shows an auctioneer carefully cutting the top of a obviously sea weathered bottle whereby he then proceeds to pour himself a nice little glass for the audiences inspection. The video then cuts to a metallic case of wine, covered in barnacles and sea grass, being opened to reveal 12 similarly affected wines. It was claimed that it was a bottle a bottle of Oceanic Reserve Champagne from the Maritime Vineyards: that alone should be enough to raise anyone’s suspicion. Further investigation into this wine produced no other results and there were no further news reports of wines from the Titanic being up for auction.

Thanks to the great sleuthing work by the team at Snopes, it was revealed that instead the wine was a bottle of SSN01 Classic from the Chinese wine company Seafloor Storage No. 1. The company states that it ages its wine for six months in oak followed by 12 months of undersea storage at a depth of 18 metres.

I’m not accusing the good people of Seafloor Storage No. 1 of deliberately misleading and betraying the good people of social media. What is abundantly clear, however, is that there was plenty of space on that door for both Rose and Jack and that no other betrayal could ever overcome that.

If you, like me, are now going back to watch James Cameron’s fantastic Titanic documentary and are needing a tipple alongside your tissue box, get that cart filled