Radiocarbon and 137Cs dating of wines

J Environ Radioact. 2020 Jun:217:106205. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2020.106205. Epub 2020 Feb 19.

Abstract

Wine dating methods based on anthropogenic 14C and 137Cs, as well as on the cosmogenic 14C were studied with the aim to improve the accuracy and precision of the dating results. While the 14C dating method has proved to be useful for dating young and old wines, the 137Cs has been effective for dating of wines originating around the 137Cs bomb-peak observed in 1963. A new method was developed for simultaneous 14C and 137Cs dating of wines, which helped to distinguish wines originating before or after the bomb peak. The δ13C values also helped to solve the 14C age ambiguity in dating of wines around the 14C bomb peak. While the 14C dating method is always destructive one, the 137Cs method may use a radiochemical separation of cesium from wine samples when better precision of results is required, but it can be also a nondestructive one with direct gamma-spectrometry of wine samples, especially those that are very rare.

Keywords: (137)Cs; Dating; Radiocarbon; Simultaneous (14)C and (137)Cs dating; Wine.

MeSH terms

  • Cesium Radioisotopes
  • Radiation Monitoring*
  • Wine / analysis*

Substances

  • Cesium Radioisotopes
  • Cesium-137