8.1

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Inspired by Ulika, a Belgo-Croatian wine producer experimenting with unusual maturing techniques, this is Bogaerden (or Adelaar) geuze by Sako, aged at twenty meters deep in the Adriatic Sea on the shores of the city of Poreč for a year. However bizarre that may sound, it is actually not even the only geuze that has aged under the sea: no doubt Cantillon's Iroise (served at Quintessence) must have served as a source of inspiration here too, because what are the odds of something completely new happening to lambic (and beer in general) within the same year, of course... Anyway, since Iroise was eventually added here as a separate entry, I guess this one deserves the same treatment, even though Sako - contrary to Cantillon - did not even bother to come up with a new hangtag and simply attached the existing Bascule geuze hangtag to the bottle, which is why I hesitated about the name of this product: is it De Bascule or Bogaerden? Note also that the specification 'Adriatico' to refer to the Adriatic Sea is used in the media but nowhere on the packaging... Anyhow: the bottle itself, of course, showed very fascinating signs of spending so much time on the bottom of the sea - we even found a dead Hexaplex trunculus still attached to it, a sea snail indigenous to those waters. And even though the muselet had rusted, both it and the cork were still firmly in place - even taking some effort to be removed, but when that was achieved, no one in the room was prepared for the huge amount of gushing that ensued; it is said that the constant rocking back and forth of the bottles in the sea (due to currents) has its own special effect on the wild yeasts inside - it seems this has rendered the yeasts all stressed up and overly active... Anyway, after losing 1/4 of the bottle: snow white, medium thick, irregular and opening head on a hazy apricot blonde robe with orangey glow. Aroma indeed with a very light 'sea breeze' - even more detectable than I was expecting, thinly draped over the usual impressions of lemon rind, gooseberry, unripe peach, sourdough, old wood, old dusty yellow curry powder, green apple peel, dry hay and, again, something vaguely reminiscent of raw mussels. Tart onset yet 'mals', unripe apricot, sour grape, lemony touch - sharper and drier than I recall from the 'ordinary' Bascule geuze but in line with the regular Bogaerden (formerly Adelaar); finely tingling effervescence, mellow sourdoughy-bready core under yoghurty-fruity lactic tartness, unripe stonefruit accents and woodiness, with a thin yet assertive lemony edge persisting. Under this all lurks a very light touch of saltiness - the people present at the table who actually had Cantillon's Iroise testified that in comparison, this Adriatico geuze showed a much clearer effect from the sea for some reason. Too bad for the violent gushing, but generally a very interesting experiment indeed - I must thank my neighbour Jo for fixing these unique bottles!