Collectors now have the chance to own a 'space wine' after Christie's put on auction a bottle through a private sale, Agence France-Presse said, as reported by Inquirer.net on Wednesday.

Christie's hopes the Petrus 2000 bottle, aged for 440 days aboard the International Space Station, will fetch $1 million, which would make it the priciest French wine ever sold.

The Pétrus 2000 is one of a batch of 12 that European company Space Cargo Unlimited sent into space in November 2019 as part of a scientific experiment into the potential for extraterrestrial agriculture.

Petrus, from the Pomerol region near Bordeaux in France, is considered one of the finest wines in the world.

The bottle returned 14 months later subtly transformed, wine experts who sampled it during a tasting in France, said.

As part of the package, the winning bidder will also receive a bottle of 'terrestrial' Petrus 2000 and a corkscrew made from a meteorite, as well as glasses and decanter, according to Christie's.

In a press release, Christie's said tests conducted in March by a wine science institute in Bordeaux found that the bottles "positively endured all the constraints of preparation, travel, and storage on the space station."

Christie's wine and spirits international director Tim Tiptree said the space-aged drink was "matured in a unique environment of near zero-gravity" aboard the ISS.

"From previous experience of this wine, this particular bottle seems more evolved than I would expect from a 21-year-old bottle of Petrus 2000," Anson said of the space-aged Petrus 2000.

The private sale means the buyer and price will remain undisclosed unless the buyer chooses to identify themselves publicly. Proceeds of the sale will go towards funding future space programs focused on agricultural research.