Analysis of furfural derivatives in the shipwrecked bubbly reveals secrets of 19th-century French wine making. The ancient and perfectly preserved champagne, which was taken from a shipwreck off the coast of Finland, revealed an array of curious facts about past wine-making practices. Chemical analysis of the vintage sparkling wine revealed particularly high levels of sugar and salt compared with modern-day champagne, as well as the presence of unexpected metals, likely used in 19th-century wine preservation and storage (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2015, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1500783112). Continue …
Initial Platform Chemicals (IPCs) from Lignocellulose
100 years ago, the first commercial production of furfural started in the USA.