CHARLESTON, S.C. - A small boat with four cases of California wine has left Charleston Harbor and will submerge the wine in the ocean for three months to age it.

Napa Valley-based Mira Winery, owned by Jim Dyke Jr., of Charleston, is experimenting to see how the motion, temperature and light in the ocean may affect the aging of the wine.

The bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon were packed in specially designed steel mesh cases and are being put in an undisclosed location in the harbour.

Winemakers have long known wine recovered from sunken ships has a unique taste, and the ocean is thought to have something to do with that. There have been experiments with ocean aging in Europe but Mira Winery says this is the first off the United States coast

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