Corking way to stop counterfeit wines

An Italian cork producer, BrentaPack, has developed and patented an invention to help combat counterfeiting which has so far been impossible to stamp out. The IDCORK system is a cork imprinted with an individual code which allows you to access details of a wine's history via an app and prove the authenticity of a wine.

The composition of a cork is like a fingerprint say BrentaPack. The tiny natural holes within it make it unique – a one-off. At the company's factory, the ID corks are printed with a personal number and then photographed from all angles. This information is scanned into a database, along with details of where and when the cork was harvested and made, and its individual characteristics.
From there, wineries that have purchased the corks go into the database and insert all the information they want to include, such as where the wine comes from, when the cork was inserted, the brand, the region, the vintage, the blend, and a picture of the bottle.

After the bottle has been opened, consumers take an image of their cork and the app uses visual recognition to compare the on-screen shot and the cork that's just been pulled.

Great idea but it could be a bit late once you've opened the bottle!