A 200-year-old bottle of Veuve Clicquot, discovered in a shipwreck, has sold for €18,050 ($28,050) at an auction in Finland.

It was one of 145 bottles unearthed from a circa 1825 wreck off the coast of Aaland, an autonomous archipelago of 6,500 islands between Sweden and Finland.

"We didn't know what we had found at first," diver Christian Ekstroem told Bloomberg regarding the find - much of which is still drinkable.

"I brought a bottle up and the closer I got to the surface, I had to hold the cork down with my thumb. It popped when I was in the boat, so we poured some into cups. We had no idea how valuable it was."

It was one of four bottles of Veuve Clicquot from the wreck to sell. Six bottles of Juglar from the wreck also came to auction, with one of the six from the defunct producer making €16,846. A single bottle of Heidsieck made €13,838.

Despite the strong showing, there was some disappointment as sales failed to match the first auction of bottles from the wreck, which took place in June 2011.

On that occasion, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot sold for $43,630, breaking the world record previously set in 2008 by a bottle of 1959 Dom Perignon.

It is confirmation that rarity is a major factor in determining prices at auction - as a growing number of bottles from the wreck have entered the market, values have diminished.

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