Reconstruction of environmental tritium levels from wine analysis

A correlation between precipitation and wine tritium concentrations was observed following a three-year study carried out within two Hungarian wine-growing districts. It was found that wine tritium, i.e., in the grape berry at harvest, reflects the preceding environmental tritium levels, as presented by the time-weighted average of the local precipitation tritium concentrations. This relationship--also supported by other studies--is explainable by a simplified model of water transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Reconstruction of past environmental levels cannot be performed using the applied formula but a formal relationship between the wine data and the preceding 12 months' average precipitation tritium concentrations could be established. This was tested by comparing Hungarian wines of known date with precipitation data pertaining to the Vienna area, back to 1960.