MARIEHAMN, Finland » When Christian Ekstrom, a local diver, finally got to explore a sunken two-masted schooner he had known about for years, he found bottles, lots of bottles, so he brought one to the surface.

"I said, ‘Let’s taste some sea water,"’ he said with a laugh, over coffee recently. "So I tasted it straight from the bottle. It was then that I noticed, ‘This is not sea water."’

Ekstrom, 31, a compact man with a shock of blond hair, brought the bottle to experts in this town of 11,000 on Aland Island, which lies midway between Finland and Sweden, then to others in Sweden and finally in France.

Though the bottle had no label, burned into the cork were markings that made clear it was a bottle of Juglar, a premium French Champagne that ceased to be sold under that name after 1830, when it was renamed Jacquesson, for another of the winery’s owners. It remains one of the smaller but finer producers of French Champagnes.

"You could still see the bubbles, and see how clear it was," Ekstrom said.

The 75-foot wreck, in 160 feet of water, contained other cargo as well: crates filled with grapes, long withered; carpets; coffee beans; spices including white and black pepper and coriander, and four bottles of beer.

Not including the bottle Ekstrom swigged from, the divers soon discovered a cargo that numbered 172 bottles of Champagne.

Four were broken, but 168 were intact, and in early August they were hoisted to dry land and stored in Mariehamn. The Baltic Sea floor proved an ideal wine cellar, with 40 degree temperatures, total darkness and enough pressure to keep the corks in.

Getting help in recognizing the find was not easy. "It was quite tricky to get someone to listen," Ekstrom said. When he contacted Veuve Clicquot, one of the largest French Champagne houses, in search of expertise, a voice on the phone said, "It’s a fantastic story, but I have to ask you, ‘Where is Aland?"’

Gradually, word got out to the Champagne world, and this November experts from abroad, including from Jacquesson and Veuve Clicquot, were invited to Aland (pronounced AH-lahnd) to replace the crumbling corks in 10 bottles and for a tasting. In the meantime, the Champagne had become the property of the local government, which lays legal claim to anything found in undersea wrecks that is more than 100 years old.

The first three bottles recorked were Juglar, but on the bottom of the fourth cork were the star and anchor of Veuve Clicquot. The star represents a comet that crossed the skies of Champagne in 1811 and supposedly caused fabulous vintages. "I thought, ‘Madame Clicquot is watching us,"’ Ekstrom said.

At another recorking, further bottles of Veuve Clicquot appeared. Francois Hautekeur, a Veuve Clicquot winemaker who attended, pointed to the name Werle branded into the bottom of the cork, referring to Edouard Werle, the man who in 1830 assumed much of the business from the Widow Clicquot, actually Barbe Nicole Clicquot, nee Ponsardin, who inherited the company from her husband in 1805 and ran it until her death. "So it is later than 1831," Hautekeur said.

Jean-Herve Chiquet, whose family now owns and operates Jacquesson, the winery that absorbed Juglar, said that the shape of the bottles and the use of the name Juglar indicated the Champagne was from the late 1820s, and may have been stored for some time before it was shipped.

He was "overcome with emotion," he said, when he first tasted the Champagne at the recorking in November.

"There was a powerful but agreeable aroma, notes of dried fruit and tobacco, and a striking acidity," Chiquet said by telephone. The oldest Champagne in Jacquesson’s inventory is from 1915, he said.

The Champagne was probably en route to the court of Czar Alexander II in St. Petersburg when the wooden cargo vessel sank. Though the exact age of the Champagne is not yet known, it goes up against tough competition in the oldest Champagne category.

The Champagne house Perrier-Jouet claims that its vintage of 1825 is the oldest recorded Champagne in existence. Hautekeur said Veuve Clicquot’s oldest drinkable bottle was from 1904.

Richard Juhlin, a Swedish author of numerous books about Champagne, said he noted "great variations" in the first 10 bottles tasted, "from seawater to great stuff." After overseeing the recorking, he said both Juglar and Veuve Clicquot "had in common a mature aroma, almost of cow cheese, Brie or Vacherin, almost too strong," combined with a "liqueur-like sweetness." Of the two Champagnes, he found the Juglar, "a little more intense, bigger, the French would say, ‘rustique,"’ but said they both compared favorably to some of the best Champagnes today.

Not much goes on, on this collection of islands that belongs to Finland but whose inhabitants speak Swedish, so the residents are understandably hoping the Champagne will put Mariehamn on the map. The government wants to auction the bottles over time; there are also, somewhat inexplicably, plans to blend some of it with modern Champagne and sell it in local restaurants and liquor stores.

"We see events and different possibilities with Champagne for small companies and restaurants," said Britt Lundberg, responsible for culture, and hence for Champagne, in the local government. Asked whether Veuve Clicquot and Jacquesson would get some of the antique bubbly, Lundberg replied, "Not get, but they’ll have the possibility to buy."

Some experts, like Juhlin, have suggested that the bottles could fetch as much as $70,000 each at auction. The previous record price was $21,200 paid for a 1928 Krug auctioned last year in Hong Kong.

"There is obviously a market and collectors," said Bjorn Haggblom, the government spokesman. "You have London, New York, Hong Kong — why not Mariehamn."

Some islanders, like Ekstrom, wish less were auctioned and more kept on the island. "There’s too much business in it, you’re losing the history," he said. "You could create a food event, serve it with a meal and tell the story of the Baltic Sea. Even if you got 3 million euros," about $4 million, from an auction, "that’s nothing." As part-owner of the island’s only beer brewery, he would like to brew a special beer if the yeast in the beer bottles proves to be alive, as experts expect.

Others approve of an auction. "I think it’s a waste to keep it on the island, people drink it maybe at New Year’s," said Patrik Helander, 34, a salesman in a hunting and fishing store. Beer, he added, was "more my cup."

Some said the auction proceeds should go to clean up the notoriously polluted Baltic.

"The Baltic Sea preserved the Champagne," said Henri Pettersson, 18, a high school student. "That would say thank you."

© 2010 The New York Times Company