Fraudsters Beware: Scientists Have Trained AI to Detect Counterfeit Wine

Scientists have turned to AI to detect if a wine is counterfeit. (Photo: Uwe Anspach/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

On Sunday, The Guardian reported that scientists have trained artificial intelligence on an algorithm to potentially detect wine fraud.

The algorithm works in conjunction with gas chromatography, a technique used to separate the compounds in a wine. The AI sifts through these compounds and finds the wine’s specific chemical “signature.” It then matches the signature to the wine’s point of origin.

“The first thing we saw, that jumped straight out at us, is there are clusters that correspond to a specific château,” Professor Alexandre Pouget, who teaches at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, said, according to The Guardian. “That told us right away that there is a chemical signature specific to each château, independent of vintage.”

Pouget went on to describe a pattern of myriad chemical concentrations that distinguishes each château’s distinctive “signature.”

“Each is a symphony: There isn’t a single note that distinguishes them, it’s the whole melody.”

A wide array of factors such as the grapes, soil, climate and viticultural practices can affect each wine’s distinctive chemical signature.

According to The Guardian, the program was able to trace wines back to the specific producer with 99% accuracy, though it struggled to detect vintages and was accurate merely 50% of the time in that regard.

Other uses for this new AI technology involve monitoring the quality of wines and blending practices, but at this moment in time, it seems the most applicable to fraud detection.

This technological innovation comes just one month after news broke out that the convicted wine fraudster, Rudy Kurniawan, was re-entering the wine world. Kurniawan’s misadventures were chronicled in Netflix’s documentary “Sour Grapes.”

Though Kurniawan appears to have gone legit with side-by-side tasting dinners featuring real wines and his notorious dupes, wine fraud still is a huge problem within the high-end market.

“There’s a lot of wine fraud around with people making up some crap in their garage, printing off labels, and selling it for thousands of dollars,” Pouget quipped. “We show for the first time that we have enough sensitivity with our chemical techniques to tell the difference.”

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