Development of tools to verify origin and varietal nature of wines

High value wine is an attractive target for substitution and fraud especially where demand outstrips supply. This can damage the reputation of the affected brand and or country of origin and costs the industry significant revenue. This project builds on previous work that investigated whether a combination of different analytical techniques could be used to determine a wine’s origin. Origin verification of wines relies on the use of parameters that not only reflect the geology and water source of the location where grapes are grown, but which are also not altered during vinification. Several additional elemental isotope ratios such as boron, lithium and lead are now being measured. This information will be combined with the continued survey of the parameters determined to be most robust over a five-year period, to provide a series of reliable analytical protocols and metrics for the determination of wine origin.