Researchers identify wines based on their chemical fingerprint
Published: Tuesday, Dec 5th 2023, 14:10
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Researchers in Geneva have been able to determine the exact origin of a wine based on its chemical signature. The University of Geneva announced on Tuesday that they have succeeded in doing what many experts had previously tried to do.
According to the university, this technology could help to prevent wine counterfeiting.
Researchers have succeeded in identifying red wine by applying artificial intelligence (AI) to existing data. As they showed in a study in the journal "Communications Chemistry", 80 wines from seven wineries in Bordeaux (F) and with twelve different vintages (1999-2007) were identified with an accuracy of 100 percent.
The AI recognizes patterns in the complex mixture of thousands of molecules that make up each wine. The concentrations of these molecules vary from wine to wine. They can be influenced by the smallest differences, such as the grape variety, the nature of the soil on which the grapes were grown or the winemakers' working methods. This creates a kind of chemical fingerprint for each wine.
"Needle in a haystack"
Recognizing differences between different wines in these fingerprints, the chemical signature, is like looking for a needle in a haystack, explained study author Alexandre Pouget from the University of Geneva in the press release. According to the researchers, a so-called chromatogram, a chemical analysis of a wine, consists of up to 30,000 different points.
Using AI, the research team from the University of Geneva, together with researchers from the University of Bordeuax, was able to analyze the entire chromatogram of wines and display it in a diagram with two axes.
Spectrum determines identity
The diagram then showed clouds of dots, as the researchers explained in the press release. Each of these clouds grouped different vintages of wines from a particular vineyard based on their chemical similarities.
"This enabled us to show that each vineyard has its own chemical signature," said co-author Stéphanie Marchand from the University of Bordeaux in the press release. In their analyses, the researchers also discovered that the chemical identity of these wines is not determined by the concentration of a few specific molecules, but by a broad chemical spectrum.
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