Application to determining the date of manufacture of wine bottles

At CENBG, this extracted beamline is traditionally devoted to the study of archaeo-materials, but over the past two years, as part of our technology transfer unit, we have developed an activity dedicated to the appraisal of works of art. The measurement and assay of major and trace elements can provide information on the nature of the material used, or even the technique employed to create the work, and thus, in some cases, estimate its period of manufacture.

Today, some old bottles of fine wine are more like collectors' items than consumer products, and their cost is evolving in the same way. As a result, a counterfeiting business has developed around these objects, and appraising them has become as necessary as authenticating a painting in a transaction between collectors or at an auction.

After taking initial measurements on a few bottles...