Buried treasure: the story of a century-old Champagne stash

The extraordinary tale of a stash of Champagne that was lost in 1900, found in 2018, and tasted this month – brought to you in pictures.

Pol Roger lost as many as 1.5m bottles of Champagne – representing around half its stock at the time – after a period of heavy rain caused its underground cellars to cave in during the night on 23 February 1900, burying the fizz in wet chalk and clay.

Both levels of Pol Roger’s facility on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay were brought down, while part of its historic cellars caved in.