|
|
The New Zealand company Oritain, which specialises in forensic science, says it can trace the origin of a wine back to the vineyard. As it grows, each vine absorbs a site-specific ratio of different elements depending on mesoclimate, altitude, rainfall, soil type and growing conditions. With the "terroir fingerprint", Oritain can thus analyse these individual characteristics of a vineyard and prove these parameters in the bottled wine.
The director of Oritain, Grant Cochrane, emphasises that this is a way to guarantee the origin of fine wines and to prevent fraud: "With our technology, we can give consumers the possibility to trace the path of their wine from the vine to the barrel to the bottle. This is a major breakthrough that enables traceability like no other."
Oritain has partnered with New Zealand's Pyramid Valley winery. Its director Steve Smith MW said he had been looking for a way to give his customers two guarantees: "Firstly, that the wines are one hundred per cent from the place we say they come from, and secondly, that we can prove the provenance of a wine at any point in the future. Our partnership has provided the answers and can offer winemakers a verification system that links the wine directly to the terroir." Consumers can track the guarantee of origin via a QR code on the bottle label.
(al / Source: decanter; Photo: Pyramid Valley)
More on the topic:
Million-dollar fraud with fake Spanish DO wines goes to court