A solution for authenticating vintage wine: This is one of the techniques currently being developed by this science and technology agency, known by its French initials CNRS. It's in keeping with their mission to foster the transfer of innovative technologies.

With an annual budget of about 2.5 billion euros (equal to one-fourth of France’s total civil research budget), and with more than 25,000 researchers, engineers, technicians and office staff, CNRS cover all fields of knowledge.

Operating under the auspices of France's ministry of research, it runs its own laboratories and research units and is organized in eight scientific departments. Reflecting CNRS's multi-disciplinary capabilities, they include: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Communication and Information Science and Technology, Engineering Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Sciences of the Universe, Life Sciences and Humanities and Social Sciences, along with the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, and the National Institute of Sciences of the Universe.

Additionally, the CNRS spans a broad variety of scientific disciplines and teaming arrangements. Dr. Herve Guegan of its Center for Nuclear Studies is currently developing a vintage wine authentication technology that involves firing beams of charged ions generated by a particle accelerator at the glass bottle (not the wine itself). The spectrum of x-rays that result from the bombardment helps scientists calculate how old the bottle is and, to an extent, where it originated from.