Conservation of 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratios in the oenological food chain of “Red” wines to validate their use as geographic tracer

87Sr/86Sr has been determined on wines and musts from different vintage years, grape juces, soils and rocks from selected vineyards of “Cesanese” wine area. Cesanese is a monocultivar wine from a region characterised by different geologic substrata, a key locality to test the influence of substratum rather wine-making procedure for the 87Sr/86Sr of wines. Experimental work has been performed on a time-period of several years to check possible seasonal variations. The data reveals that 87Sr/86Sr does not change through the oenological food chain remaining constant within the analytical errors during wine-making processes. No significant isotopic variations have been observed in musts and wines of different vintage years. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that the isotopic signature of wines is strongly related to the bioavailable fraction of the soil. The data corroborate the fact that Sr-isotopes of high-quality wines can be considered as a reliable tool for fingerprinting their geographic provenance.