(Decanter) - Twelve bottles of Bordeaux wine have been rocketed to the International Space Station so that researchers can see how the extreme conditions affect ageing. 

A Northrop Grumman rocket blasted off from a NASA launchpad in Virginia on 2 November, sending the Bordeaux wines into space among 3,700kg of research and supply cargo that also included a zero-gravity baking oven.

But the wines were not part of the International Space Station’s Christmas dinner planning; researchers hope to study how radiation in space affects the ageing process.

It is part of a project involving several universities, including the University of Bordeaux’s ISVV wine institute, and led by a start-up company named Space Cargo Unlimited.

The Bordeaux wines will be stored on the ISS at 18 degrees Celsius for one year before being returned to earth and compared to a control sample that has been kept at the same temperature, NASA said in an explainer article.