Another Reason To Drink Beer – Radioactive Wine

For obvious reasons we don’t normally cover wine here at American Craft Beer, but findings that some California wines are showing spikes in radiation levels that can be traced back to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, made us want a beer!

Here’s the deal…

Researchers at Bordeaux University have identified a spike in radiation levels in California wines from the 2012 vintage onward, that they blame on the level 7 nuclear meltdown in Japan that spread of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

But before we all freak out, the Drinks Business notes that “radioactivity has always existed in the earth’s atmosphere, soil, seas and rivers, and is found in trace amounts in much of the foods we eat, but rarely at a level that would be of any concern. The same is true of the wine industry.”

The Bordeaux University study’s aim was to determine if the Fukushima incident affected the level of artificial radioactivity found in Californian wines in the same way that the Chernobyl incident had impacted wines from SW France in the 1980s.

“The Fukushima incident, which took place on March 11, 2011, resulted in a radioactive cloud that crossed the Pacific Ocean to reach the west coast of the United States,” the research stated. “In Northern California, there is Napa Valley. The idea was then to see if, as was the case in Europe following the Chernobyl accident, if we could detect a variation in the cesium-137 level in these wines.”

And the study did find a trace increase in cesium-137 in many Napa Valley wines which nevertheless remain within a “normal threshold.”

And whether the increased ‘unnatura’l radiation levels in these wines is deemed safe, or not, by government officials, it still doesn’t make us crave a recent Napa Valley Cabernet…just sayin’.

And we can’t help but wonder if the Fukushima radiation clouds made their way into Washington State’s hop-rich Yakima Valley?

Can we put those Bordeaux University researchers on that?

 

Radioactive Japan image credit: iStock-183799658