Next time you buy some Chateau Montelena wine, be sure to check the seal on the bottle's neck in
order to verify that the bottle has not been tampered with. Wines can be counterfeited in many ways,
such as by using fake labels or the refilling of authentic bottles. Prooftag's Bubble Tag technology is
helping producers and consumers to detect and prevent wine counterfeiting. Each Bubble Tag, which
is a random and unique pattern of bubbles within the seal on a wine bottle, is photographed and
assigned an identification number, which is then stored in a database. The bubbles in the seal can
be authenticated by typing the identification number into a mobile phone application and compared
visually with the photograph in the database. Alternatively, the seal can be scanned using an optic
reader.
Pillitteri Estates Winery, the world's largest estate producer of Icewine, is the latest winery to adopt
Prooftag's authentication system. Counterfeiting is particularly problematic for producers of Icewine,
as it is now one of the most counterfeited wines in the world. Montauban, France-based Prooftag
has attracted more than 30 French and foreign wine producers, including Chateau Margaux, Bilton Wines of South Africa and Chateau Montelena in Napa, as clients since its founding in 2004. Prooftag's
patented Bubble Tag technology was accidentally discovered in 1999. While processing an adhesive,
electronic research firm Novatec found that spontaneous bubbles formed within the polymer. Initial
observation proved that these bubbles align in a unique and random signature, acting like a fingerprint
that is impossible to replicate. The technology has been applied in many ways, from product seals to
document security.
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