If a bottle of wine has spent time underwater, is it still something you’d want to drink? This might not strike you as the kind of question the federal government would need to get involved in, or even care about. But three weeks ago, we came across a strange new policy posted by the TTB, the federal agency responsible for labeling alcoholic beverages.

Titled “ Advisory on the Underwater Aging of Wine,” the document intriguingly mentioned “recent interest in the aging of wine under ocean waters,” and then dropped some pretty strong language about the practice: “adulterated, unsanitary conditions,” “contaminated with filth,” “effluent,” “decaying organic matter.”


If you took this as a scary verdict on underwater aging, however, you’d be wrong. In fact the TTB actually has no idea whether any of these things get into a bottle of submerged wine—the document is also generously studded with “mays” and “mights.”

But why, and how, it exists at all is a window into strange world of how alcohol is regulated in the United States—a food tested by the FDA, but policed by the same Treasury department that tracks cigarettes and collects the tax on guns.

And sometimes, what looks like regulation is really one agency punting to another.

***

As far as anyone knows, the story starts with California winemaker Jim Dyke and his team at Mira Winery in Napa Valley, who began dropping cases of wine into Charleston Harbor two years ago.

This was kind of an experiment, and kind of a publicity stunt. The winery, which was founded in 2009, looks to “challenge conventional wisdom” of winemaking, Dyke said, adding that the aging process seemed ripe for change. “Everyone just puts wine in a warehouse at 55 degrees because that’s what the Europeans did,” Dyke said in an interview.

But a few underwater-aging experiments coming out of Europe and the 2011 auction of champagne from a shipwreck that went for between $15,000 and $50,000 a bottle—made Dyke interested in challenging that conventional wisdom.

So in February 2013, Dyke dropped 48 bottles, or four cases, of Mira’s 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon wrapped in four steel mesh cages 60 feet into South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor, which stays at a familiar 55 degrees for most of the winter. When the bottles were fished out three months later, and the protective wax seal removed from the top of each, the wine tasted as if it had aged two years, Dyke said.

Dyke and his team dubbed the wine Aquaoir and deemed it a success. A few of the bottles were sold off in sets to curious wine connoisseurs, paired with a conventionally aged Cabernet Sauvignon at the impressive price of $500 per pair. In November 2013, they did it again, this time dropping eight cases that they left for six months.

Around the time the cases were brought up in March, Dyke got an email from TTB. It indicated they had some concerns with the wine from the experiment.

How TTB found out about Aquaoir is unclear. Tom Hogue, a spokesman for the bureau, suggested it may have been due to news reports and added that “this idea has been kicking around for a while” when TTB got involved.

It might have been the agency’s alertness—TTB monitors advertising from alcohol makers as well as social media in order to ensure compliance with marketing rules. It also might have been a dime dropped by the competition. Alcohol makers are encouraged to tip the government off when they find rules being broken, so it’s not unheard of in the industry for winemakers to rat each other out to authorities.

Wine aging isn’t regulated by the government. But wine contamination is. Normally a winery can store wine however it wants, and only in certain cases does it have to label what that method was. But plunging wine into the water—changing the pressure around its cork, potentially surrounding it with pollutants—raises the question of contamination.

It was this possibility that raised concerns and triggered the involvement of FDA and TTB, which enjoy a complicated dual oversight of the alcohol industry. If any of the horrible things in the seawater actually got into a bottle of wine, that brew would be adulterated under food safety laws that fall under FDA’s jurisdiction. However, the agency has an agreement that allows TTB to enforce its rules through product labeling. (Every label on every bottle of booze sold in the United States has the greenlight from TTB.)

After hearing about Mira’s experiment, TTB pitched the issue to FDA, which took issue with the number of nasty things in seawater. A warning to the vineyard and the public advisory ensued,

even if nobody at either agency actually knows whether underwater wine is actually unsafe. Shy of testing almost every bottle, it would be impossible to say if anything ended up in any of Mira’s Cabernet Sauvignons—but if the FDA isn’t comfortable, then the TTB isn’t comfortable, making the wine unsellable.

Hogue defended the agency’s involvement. “It may or may not be a small amount of wine,” he said, “but what will it grow into?” He also suggested the agency had “a responsibility to the regulated industry” to let them know that underwater aging might not be a good idea.

If it became a more common practice, “It would be [FDA’s] determination, I assume, in a case-by-case basis” on whether an underwater-aged wine is actually unsafe, Hogue said.

For now, at least, the experiment remains unfinished. Dyke said he has test results from his wine to show that no seawater got in. While he said he has lawyers working on the issue, an FDA spokeswoman said that the agency is “unaware of any contact in recent weeks by specific winemakers with questions about aging wine underwater.”

In the meantime, it’s unclear if the Mira team can even sample the, ehem, fruits of their labor.

“We think we’ve already felt the heavy hand of government and we don’t want to do anything to make that hand come down any harder,” Dyke said.

And if you’re looking to try some Aquaoir? There are still seven more cases sitting on the floor of the Charleston Harbor.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said that there are eight more cases in Charleston Harbor.