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Carbon-14 Dating Reveals 5% of Vintage Wines May Be Frauds

Posted by timothy on from the better-than-backdating-a-check dept.

Carbon dating isn't used only for such academic pursuits as trying to determine the age of the Shroud of Turin, or figure out how old some rocks are. An anonymous reader writes "Up to 5% of fine wines are not from the year the label indicates, according to Australian researchers who have carbon-dated some top dollar wines."

2 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. BS Article by rozthepimp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Certain vintages (same grapestock, same vineyard, same winemaster) vary in perceived taste and value from year to year, depending on weather, harvest time, sugar content, etc. 1999 may be great, 2000 shoddy. Is C-14 dating accurate to within one year? Hmm...

  2. Not much data by blamanj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That story doesn't leave much to go on, it's pretty low information content. However, it should be noted that a vintage wine can contain up to 15% of its grapes from another year. That would obviously skew any carbon dating results.