When that 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan back in 2011 (and brought a tsunami in its wake), you probably remember that it triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The aftermath sent radioactive particles into the ocean and air and some reached as far as the Pacific coast of the U.S.
Here’s the bad news: French researchers have recently discovered that some of those radioactive particles were so widespread, that they affected wines bottled in Northern California around the time of the event. A series of vintage Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wines from 2009 to 2012 were examined to see if researchers could detect higher levels of radioactive particles in wine from around the time of the Fukushima accident.
Researchers used a method originally created to determine the authenticity of vintage wines for the study and didn’t detect the cesium-137, a radioactive isotope, in the wine until they vaporized it and turned it into ash. Then they found the wine actually contained twice as much as wines bottled before the nuclear disaster. But the amount they detected is still considered “extremely low,” as if that makes us feel better.
Source: New York Post