Determination of the Carbon Isotope 13c/12c in Ethanol of Fruit Wines in Order to Define Identification Characteristics

In recent times we can notice a large number of counterfeit fruit wines in the market as it is difficult to discover exogenous alcohols in them. This is due to the fact that while producing table fruit wines it is allowed to add cane or beet sugar during fermentation to provide necessary alcohol conditions. Our measurements were carried out with the help of the method “Détermination du rapport isotopique 13C/ 12C par spectrométrie de mass isotopique de l'éthanol du vin ou de l'éthanol obtenu par fermentation des moûts concentrés ou des moûts concentrés rectifies” OIV-MA-AS312-06. Analyzing Russian crops of fruit and berries in 2015, with the exception of pomegranate (Azerbaijan), we have obtained the following results: black currant – minus 25.75 ± 0.08‰, cherry – minus 25.62 ± 0.06‰, chokeberry – minus 26.13 ± 0.26‰, pear – minus 27.04 ± 0.06‰, plum – minus 26.24 ± 0.41‰, apple – minus 27.58 ± 0.54‰ and pomegranate – minus 28.21 ± 0.22‰. These results suggest the following conclusions: using exogenous alcohols derived from plants C3 – photosynthesis type leads to a slight change in isotopic characteristics of carbon ethanol in fruit wines, while adding sugars or alcohols from plants C4 – type leads to an increase of the isotope 13C, resulting in significant changes of the indicator δ13C . To establish significant differences of exogenous alcohols C3 – type introduced from the outside and obtained by fermentation of adding beet sugar, in some cases it is not enough to use the only one indicator δ13 C (‰). Therefore promising researches are connected with defining isotope ratios of other biophilic elements of fruit ethanol, namely, oxygen 18O/16O and hydrogen D/H.