The Antique Wine Company of London, England, needed a way to authenticate the antique wines they sell every day for thousands of dollars per bottle, so they teamed up with the National Center for Scientific Research in France to develop a technique. The method employs beams of ions shot at the bottles by a particle accelerator and analyzes the resultant x-ray spectrum. By comparing the results of the suspect bottle with those of known, authentic bottles from the same winery and the same era, the scientists can tell if it is the real thing, or if it's a fake bottle produced at a different time and place.

The method tests the glass of the bottle, not the contents, so in theory a bottle could be authenticated but really have been refilled. To address this concern, scientists can use another technique that measures the levels of a radioactive isotope of cesium present in the wine itself. Interestingly, the cesium is the result of the fallout from the nuclear weapons testing of the latter half of the 20th Century, so wines from after about 1950 can be correctly dated this way. And, if an antique bottle has been refilled with modern wine to be passed off as original, it can easily be discovered.