Wine has chemical fingerprint

Two forensic scientists at the University of Western Australia have found a way to prove the origin of wine chemically. Alex Martin and John Watling used mass spectrometry to determine the chemical composition or 'fingerprint' of 400 wines from around Australia. The fingerprint is made up of over 60 trace elements which depend mainly on the soil composition of the region and the grape variety.

They found that wines made from one grape variety in one region have similar chemical fingerprints, and are quite different to those of the same grape variety in other regions.

They are now building up a database of wines from around the world which could help confirm the identity of a wine by comparing its fingerprint to those in the database.