Forensic & Commercial Applications

Stable isotopes yield information on the geographic sources and environments of organic materials. A paper from our group on wine water δ¹⁸O provides one example. The water δ¹⁸O of several wines derived from grapes grown in California, Oregon, and Washington was analyzed and compared to continuous maps of precipitation δ¹⁸O and climate. From this a model was developed and then executed across the counties sampled. It was then possible to compare model output to a time-series of wine δ¹⁸O previously published for two nearby locations. The model and data agreed well across seven vintages, with one exception that may have been due to El Niño effects on the isotopic composition of the vines' source water. Other examples may be found in the forthcoming Isoscapes book, as well as on our respective lab pages (see Contacts).