An Interesting Mix
The paper notes that wine contains very small, but measurable, amounts of cesium 137 from weapons testing. Thus, the amounts of the isotope in wines can be used to determine the vintage of fine wines and to protect against fraudulent claims about the vintage. For example, a 1930 vintage wine should not contain cesium 137. Since the gamma radiation from the decay of cesium 137 passes through glass bottles, the test is has the additional advantage that it is a nondestructive one and doesn't require tampering with expensive, old vintage wines. (The article emphasizes that the amounts of cesium 137 in the wine are negligible, so wine lovers need not worry on that account either.)
The authors of the study point to other possible applications in the future. The gamma spectrometer used is very sensitive and may be able to detect a range of isotopes. Since soils in different regions vary in composition, the distribution of isotopes in a given bottle of wine may be able to identify whether it is from Bordeaux or Burgundy--or Napa Valley. However, the paper concludes that the work has not yet been done to validate this concept.
It sounds like an area of research that I would enjoy--in more ways than one!
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There's very funny incident about this in the book Alsos, by Samuel Goldsmit. The book is about the Alsos mission to capture German nuclear scientists near the end of WWII. The people on the mission were in Germany, more or less along with the first troops of the Allied advance. The Alsos guys were supposed to send water samples from rivers back to headquarters for testing for radioactivity. They hoped this might reveal where the German bombmakers were working.
ReplyDeleteAs a joke, the guys in Alsos sent back a bottle of white wine, saying "Test this too, of course!" Well, it was a joke, but the wine DID have some radioactivity, and this caused quite a stir. Headquarters wanted to know: "Where did that wine come from?" And so forth. Very funny incident in a book full of funny incidents (really, it is.)