European scientists take over from wine experts
Fraudsters and opportunists will not welcome the news that French scientists have managed to map the DNA sequences of unpurified wine. The breakthrough will make it easier to distinguish diluted wines from the authentic ones. Although the discovery by France's National institute of agricultural research (INRA) will not mean that scientists will be able to differentiate the percentages of the each grape, they will be able to tell if it is a mixed, rather than a pure, wine. The researchers have been able to identify the genetic makeup of around 600 grapevines, although only about 200 types of wine are used in today's wines. The new findings will be particularly important in France, where wine production is worth around nine billion euro annually. Detection techniques of fraudulence in wines do not presently involve scientific techniques in the country. Last year, the official agency for detection, the Competition, consumption and anti-fraud agency, carried out 26,700 checks in France to stamp out fraud.