The content of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), classified as a so-called perpetual chemical (PFAS), in European wines has “alarmingly increased” in recent decades, Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) warned on Wednesday.
The organisation tested 49 bottles of commercial wine from ten European countries produced between 1974 and 2024.
In samples before 1988, no traces of TFA were found at all. At the turn of the century, the concentration “increased slightly” from 13 microgrammes to 21 microgrammes per litre. But after 2010, there was an explosive rise in the index – to an average of 121 microgrammes per litre in the newest wines. That’s well above levels previously recorded in water.
Increases in TFA contamination levels have been recorded in both conventional and organic wine varieties, but the latter are generally lower.
“The wines that contained the highest concentration of TFA, on average, were also the wines we found with the highest amount of pesticide residue,” Salomé Roynel from PAN Europe said.
PFAS are chemicals that are widely used in consumer products. And some of them have been shown to have harmful effects on humans. In particular, recent studies on mammals have shown that it poses reproductive health risks.
The new findings on wine fit harmoniously into the overall picture of the PFAS “invasion” that scientists around the world are painting in broad strokes. Hans Peter Arp of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said:
“Overall they are consistent with what the scientific community knows about the alarming rise of TFA in essentially anything we can measure. They also provide further evidence that PFAS-pesticides can be a major source of TFA in agricultural areas, alongside other sources such as refrigerants and pharmaceuticals.”
The main sources of TFA are believed to be fluorinated refrigerants known as F-gases, which are dispersed around the world, and PFAS-based pesticides, which are concentrated in agricultural soil. These presumably spread widely in Europe in the 1990s, after the 1987 Montreal Protocol banned ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons.
A November study based on field data from southern Germany found a “significant increase” in TFA concentrations in groundwater when comparing farmland to other land uses.
Gabriel Sigmund of Wageningen University in the Netherlands emphasised that TFAs are not naturally degradable and are very difficult and expensive to remove from water. In addition, there is insufficient data on their rate of formation, making it difficult to assess their long-term impact on soil. Accumulated pesticides can degrade over time and release TFAs. And even if their use is completely stopped now, further increases in TFA concentrations in water resources and elsewhere should be expected in the coming years.
