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

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."

Comments

No One Would Notice

[geoffrobinson]

I've had a $400 wine before (obtained at a decent price and then aged). The difference between a decent $20-$40 wine and a $400 one is minimal relative to the price.

I doubt anyone without a really refined palate would be able to notice. And even if you did, you would probably chalk it up to poor storage or oxidation or something.

Re:No One Would Notice

[ravenspear]

I agree. While price matters to a certain extent (a cheap $10 bottle from the grocery might not be as good as a nice wine), spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine is a proposition with extraordinarily diminishing returns.

When you see how absurd some of those prices are, it's not surprising that you have people trying to fake it for a quick buck.

Re:No One Would Notice

[Bigjeff5]

The refined palate is the key, and while some people definitely have it, most people don't taste nearly enough wine to develop it (and I mean sip-spit, not sip-sip-sip).

For most people a $400 bottle of wine is nothing more than a status symbol, they'd probably enjoy a less complicated $20 wine a hell of a lot more.

Note: personally, I can barely remember which types of wines I like, let alone get all snobbish on age and vinyard.

Re:No One Would Notice

[Archangel Michael]

$400 dollar wine is much like gold plated ethernet cables. Only less so.

Re:No One Would Notice

[MishgoDog]

I drink a lot of wine, with a wide range of prices, and disagree.
While it certainly isn't a linear relationship to price, or indeed certain, I have had a lot of very expensive wine which I am more than happy to pay for because I can taste the difference.

I can find a $15 I like and drink, a $30 a love and drink a lot, and a $70 I savour and purely enjoy. The >$300 bottles I've had (not paid for by me, I'm a young professional supporting a student wife!), are usually better than the lot - just not (say) 10 times better than the $30 bottle.

To translate into geekspeak: a top of the line i7 processor might cost 10 times what a midrange 775pin would cost, but doesn't perform the same as 10 of the cheaper processor. Indeed, the majority of users (i.e. browsing & word processing) may not notice the difference.
But some people who are into their computers will definitely notice the difference, and will pay the extra.
I know the metaphor isn't perfect, but you get the gist.

All of that being said - aging wine can be a bit of pot luck unless the conditions are perfect.

Re:No One Would Notice

[jrumney]

In many ways the wine market is similar to the hifi market. If only the butler had opened the wine using the correct polarisation of the Oxygen Free Corkscrew, you might have noticed the difference.

Alternate Headline

[wjc_25]

95% of carbon datings may be inaccurate, says new wine grower-sponsored study.

The finer things in life.

[voodoo cheesecake]

This is why I only drink Jolt and 151.

Re:The finer things in life.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Man, that's hardcore. Do you shit yourself in your sleep?

Excellent work.

[deniable]

1. Buy a bunch of expensive wine
2. Carbon date a small sample.
3. Dispose of the rest thoughtfully.

Some days I'm proud to be an Australian.

Re:Excellent work.

[deniable]

Whoosh

Fixed that for you.

Re:Old Enough?

[rnaiguy]

There is a trick that can be used to date things from the 2nd half of the 20th century. Nuclear bomb testing caused a spike in atmospheric C14, which is rapidly decreasing as it equilibrates with the oceans (among other things). The actual radioactive decay is insignificant on this timescale, and so we can get a pretty good idea if the grapes used to make the wine were plucked after nuclear testing began, and if so what year they were harvested. This technique has also been used in biology to date the "birth" of cells in human tissues.

Re:-1 wine snobs

[Cryacin]

Isn't it funny how wine connoisseurs play this weird guessing game.

"Can you guess what wine it is?"

"Chateu Latour 1986?"

"Nooooo! 1985!!!"

"Damn! So close!!!"

I mean, you don't exactly hear winos on the street going...

"Yes, fantastic vintage!" "About four O'Clock!"
"Goes well with the carcass of KFC, from bin number four..."

Dammit

[__aagctu1952]

Carbon dating isn't all used for such academic pursuits as trying to determine the age of the Shroud of Turin, or figure out how old some rocks are.

The summary writer fails basic science. Carbon dating isn't used, and can't be used for dating rocks. Various forms of radiometric dating can be used, but carbon dating? Hell no. In the words of Youtube's creationism debunker Potholer54, "because there's no f-ing carbon in it!".

Re:Dammit

[rgmoore]

"because there's no f-ing carbon in it!".

There are plenty of rocks that contain carbon. Good examples include limestone, marble, coal, and oil shale. The problem isn't lack of carbon. The problem is that the half life of 14C is very short compared to the age of most rocks, so there isn't enough radiocarbon left to date.

Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[Aargau]

It's always more interesting when there are multiple viewpoints on an issue, and I'm happy to take the contrary one. I've tasted 2 buck Chuck (quite good), and tasted $100-$1000 dollar bottles. There is actually a difference that's discernable by I'd guess at least 40% of wine drinkers, and while I'm open to the idea that we can replicate some of the properties of the top wines cheaply, and that certain top wines are counterfeited, I still posit that the top, expensive wines are an experience that are worth paying for, at least once or twice in one's life. To test, I'd recommend splitting among a few friends an Opus One from Costco for around $100, which can be 40% of the retail price. It's consistently a top wine and will enlighten you if you're in that sad, obsessive, minority of folks who care enough to spend crazy money on good wines :)

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

I'm from Argentina. We produce some of the finest wines in the world, specially in Mendoza.
t,
Here, a cheap, average wine that most people drink at home with dinner retails at ~$9 (That is, 9 pesos, or 2.3 Dollars.)

A relatively good wine retails ~$20 (5.2 dollars). At $150 (39 dollars), you can get one of the finest wines you'll ever taste.

The funny thing is, while traveling to the USA, I've recognized bottles that Retail here for ~$35 (9 dollars), with tags of 250 dollars!

So, leaving that aside, yes, you can definitely tell the difference, but it's not all about money. You can definitely tell the difference between any two wines. But, with wine, price is not always = quality. I've tested $200 wines that I didn't like (like the Lamadrid Gran Reserva Malbec) , and $20 (5 dollars) wines that I loved (Like Benjamin Nieto Cabernet Sauvignon)

So, money plays a big role, but there's not a clear relationship between price and quality. It's more of a threshold ... you won't find really good wines very cheap. But above a certain price, there are good and bad wines at a very ample price range

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[teh dave]

Diminishing returns applies to most products though. Cars, computers, mobile phones, food, houses, clothing... And audio equipment. Most people can't appreciate the quality and faithful sound reproduction of a good audio system, which is a shame because if more people could, then more people would buy better equipment, and consequently, the really expensive stuff wouldn't be as expensive as it is.

Like with wine, I believe that most people would be able to hear the difference between the cheap $0.05 shit that Apple bundles with their products and an infinitely nicer pair of $60-$100 phones, if only they'd actually take the time to listen. Also like wine, being able to appreciate a $2000 set of headphones is not common. And again like wine, you don't know how bad Apple headphones are until you try something better.

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[CrashandDie]

Mod parent up. The exact same thing is noticeable in France.

I love cooking with wine in quite a few different dishes and styles. I always used the cheapo wines I could find, and in southern France (as in, 30 miles from the Spanish border), a cheap wine is something you get between 1 EUR per 750ml bottle and 3-4 EUR per 5 litre box.

When I moved to the UK, the cheapest I could find began at 6-7 GBP. In France, most people drink (or should I say, absorb) 3 EUR bottles. They'll go for a 12 EUR bottle when they're feeling fancy. You rarely see people going for the 30+ EUR bottles, unless it's a dining party and you have to bring a gift.

The first time I tasted a 100+ GBP was in London. And yeah, sure, it was nice to have a penguin decant it and use a spotless napkin to absorb the couple of drops that would otherwise have hit the tablecloth, but for all intents and purposes, the 12 EUR wine will do just fine.

That being said, I agree with grandparent though. Going for a 4 digit wine is a once in a lifetime experience that people who can afford it should definitely pay up for. Make sure to bring a wine-knowledgeable friend with you that night too, that way if it tastes like crap and you don't know if you ought to start shouting, your mate will make that decision for you.

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[adolf]

Hmm.

So, it's like beer, cigars, women, clothes, and cars. You often get what you pay for, but if you try a bit, you'll find that you can save a lot of money while getting a lot more.

Nothing to see here, folks.

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[Mr. Freeman]

"that way if it tastes like crap and you don't know if you ought to start shouting, your mate will make that decision for you."

If you don't know whether or not it's crap then how on earth can you say that drinking a $1000+ wine is something that you should pay for EVER? It's not a memorable experience if you have to be TOLD that it's a memorable experience. If you can't recognize the difference between a $20 and $1000 wine by yourself then there isn't any damn point in buying the $1000 bottle.

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[feepness]

It's not a memorable experience if you have to be TOLD that it's a memorable experience.

Some of my most memorable experiences I can't recall at all.

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[oji-sama]

For sure it's a memorable experience that you've just paid $1000 and can't taste the difference to $20 one. A learning experience as well ^.^

Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position

[Glonoinha]

Same goes for hookers.
Or so I've heard.

Re:-1 wine snobs

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, my. There was a hysterically funny sketch on Carol Burnett, decades about an alcoholic wine expert who was lured into a final tasting match against another expert. His opponent's failing description included the type of wine, the year, the winery, and the name of the girl who stomped the grapes. But he got the name of the girl wrong.

The alcoholic's winning description was "Isss g-o-o-d".

Re:Old Enough?

[rnaiguy]

No, I'm thinking of C14. Which is produced when all the excess neutrons from a nuclear blast smash into atmospheric nitrogen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14

here's the biology reference: http://www.pnas.org/content/103/33/12564.long

these guys pioneered the tech for use in biology, but then it was popularly applied to wines.

misleading summary

[SuperBanana]

According to the study, wine experts have estimated that up to 5% of fine wines sold today are not all they are cracked up to be on the label or in the price tag

The carbon dating didn't find 5% of wines are frauds. A bunch of "wine experts" they talked to said it.

Also, it's not based off the age of the carbon in the wine; it's based off the percentage of radioactive carbon from nuclear tests. Unless they have a precise idea of exactly how much radioactive carbon ended up where after each test, the whole thing is a load of crap.

BS Article

[rozthepimp]

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...

Re:Old Enough?

[geminidomino]

I saw that episode of White Collar too! ;)

Not much data

[blamanj]

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.

'Sideways': Everything you need to know bout wine

[Leemeng]

1. Don't chew gum while tasting wine.
2. Delicate grapes on a vine can be a metaphor for your life / personality, or something.
3. If anyone orders Merlot, leave.

Re:Carbon dating is not accurate by century let al

[compro01]

There are alternate radiocarbon techniques that are much more accurate. Nuclear weapons testing resulted in a big spike in atmospheric carbon-14 levels globally, which is dropping rapidly since the test ban treaty. Biologists have been using these techniques for determining cell ages for a couple years.

More info can be found here

Re:-3.14 Reference Snobs

[Dahamma]

So has Monty Python, and it's probably still in the top 10 references on slashdot...

Re:Carbon dating is not accurate by century let al

[DavidRawling]

Or, since you HAVE read /. for a while, you could read the article. Which describes the measurement of increased C14 levels due to atmospheric fallout after detonation of nuclear weapons, and their subsequent reduction (dilution) due to fossil fuel burning, which in their testing was enough to narrow down to a specific year.

They've been doing this for years, actually.

[Creosote]

The Australian researcher quoted in the story was co-author of a paper involving forensic use of C-14 dating of wines published in 2004:

U. Zoppi, Z. Skopec, J. Skopec, G. Jones, D. Fink, Q. Hua, G. Jacobsen, C. Tuniz, A. Williams, Forensic applications of 14C bomb-pulse dating, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Volumes 223-224, Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, August 2004, Pages 770-775, ISSN 0168-583X, DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2004.04.143.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TJN-4CDWMNK-F/2/b2a003d44396872bd06d5c80443167cd)

and I'm nearly certain I saw published research in the 1990s using C-14 dating to establish wine adulteration, but as it's 3:40 in the morning insomniac me is not going to run down the reference

Re:-3.14 Reference Snobs

[cc1984_]

So has Monty Python, and it's probably still in the top 10 references on slashdot...

No it isn't

Re:'Sideways': Everything you need to know bout wi

[natehoy]

4. Always order Merlot. Everyone else leaves, more wine for you!