Rare and collectible wines are easy targets for counterfeiters. That’s why companies are uncorking some high-tech solutions to protect the high-end wine industry - both vintners and connoisseurs.

Mock merlots? Bogus bordeaux? Pseudo sauvignon? Who knew that counterfeiters would find a way to invade our cellars?

Nobody knows just how big the counterfeiting problem is in the wine industry. Some experts think that as much as five percent of wines sold in auctions may be fake. Some counterfeit wine cases have been reported in Europe and China. And early this year, the FBI started investigating

whether counterfeits were being passed off as rare vintages worth more than $100,000 a bottle in old-wine auctions.

Now, even if counterfeiting hasn’t noticeably drained industry revenues yet, vintners have started looking at some high-tech solutions that have recently become available:

Kodak’s new anti-counterfeiting system adds invisible markers to printing inks, paper and packaging that can be read using handheld readers to prove authenticity of the wine. And some wineries have have already been sent the readers in tamper-proof packaging. According to one vineyard owner, this anti-counterfeiting solution does not interfere with the process used to bottle our wines – but only enhances the product by ensuring their authenticity.

John Henry Packaging has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard to develop a technology that puts multi-colored codes or graphics into labels that can interact with a database of wine information, allowing consumers and distributors to track of the origins of their wine with a phone call. To thwart counterfeiters, colors and character combinations can be regulalrly changed. The codes can be microprinted so they’re visible only with manification or in type that can be easily read.

IDGLOBAL’s Nano-Molecular Markers™ are applied to pre-selected areas on the bottle or label using a proprietary tagging method that in no way affects the wine inside. The Nano-Molecular Markers are applied at the molecular level and cannot be detected, removed or altered by the criminal counterfeiters allowing for 100% authentication of the component in real time, in a matter of seconds using proprietary handheld scanning technologies.

For those who think that a bottle can be opened, filled with cheap wine, and then re-corked, a Paris-based company called Proof Tag has developed bubble tags. The technology uses a tamperproof seal that is placed on the capsule of wine bottles. According to the company’s CEO, Franck Bourrières, a unique pattern of bubbles that is like a fingerprint is etched on the tag, providing a guarantee of origin; and the seal leaves a metallic residue on the rim of the bottle when it is opened, making it tamperproof.

Other anti-fraud measures are being explored but many say that with a premium product where reputation is everything, the best anti-fraud method is still to buy from direct sources and reputable importers.