A California Wine Company Had to Destroy 2,000 Bottles of Wine After Illegally Aging Them at the Bottom of the Ocean

On its website, California wine company Ocean Fathoms praises the waters of the Santa Barbara channel as “the perfect environment” for aging its wines. “[T]he set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product,” the company claims, before praising the abundant underwater flora and fauna that attach itself to each bottle. 

In 2017, Ocean Fathoms started to submerge specially designed crates of its wine in the channel, and when the bottles were retrieved 12 months later, they were sold for up to $500 each. The problem — and this is a significant one — was that the company’s owners never received the proper permits from the California Coastal Commission or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which turned that “perfect environment” into an illegal one. 

On top of that, the company sold the wine without a business license, without an ABC alcohol sales permit, and it was collecting taxes from each purchase without paying the required taxes to the state. According to Santa Barbara County District Attorney John T. Savrnoch, the wines would be considered “adulterated and not fit for human consumption,” according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

As a result, the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages Control seized roughly 2,000 bottles of wine from Ocean Fathom and destroyed them at a wastewater treatment plant in Santa Barbara. The glass bottles — the ones adorned with all of that flora and fauna — were taken to a recycling center.

According to a statement from the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office, the destruction of the wine was part of a plea agreement accepted by Ocean Fathom’s founders,  Emanuele Azzaretto and Todd Hahn. The two men also plead guilty to three misdemeanors for illegally discharging material into U.S. waters, selling alcohol without a license, and aiding and abetting investor fraud. (Azzaretto and Hahn have also been required to pay $50,000 in restitution to that investor.) 

“This case involved individuals who operated with complete disregard for our consumer and environmental laws,” District Attorney Savrnoch said in a statement. “The California Coastal Commission referred the case to our Consumer and Environmental Protection Unit, and because of the broad scope of violations, we investigated with the help of five state and local agencies. The case highlights the importance of our office’s relationship with outside agencies, and it demonstrates our commitment to holding companies and individuals accountable for violating all types of consumer and environmental laws.” 

In an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent, Hahn was still hopeful that Ocean Fathoms could eventually return — and get back to aging its wines in the ocean (with the proper permits this time). “The demand has never been higher,” he told the outlet. “The environment is perfect, and it’s a nice day trip [to Santa Barbara].” 

Supposedly it’s the perfect environment for this kind of thing. At least, that’s what we read somewhere.