A company called Ocean Fathoms created a process to age their wine at the ocean floor off the coast of Santa Barbara but then found themselves in a rather sobering situation.
"The ocean is the perfect environment environment for aging wine; optimal temperature at 55 degrees, no oxygen, no UV light contamination, no sound and the ocean current slowly turning the wine inside the bottles," they promised. "The combination of flora and fauna attracts an abundance of sea-creatures and sea-life which ultimately adorn our bottles."
The plan was that they'd bring the bottles to the surface a year later and sell them for $500/each. Thing is, they didn't have permission from the California Coastal Commission or the US Army Corps of Engineers to turn the sea into a wine cellar. So rather than making good on their gimmicky promise, Ocean Fathom was hit with several criminal charges, including "illegally discharging material into U.S. waters, selling alcohol without a license, and aiding and abetting investor fraud," reports Food & Wine.
Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney declared the wine "adulterated and not fit for human consumption," dumped it all out at a wastewater treatment plant, and recycled the bottles.
(via Weird Universe)
