Levels of a little-known forever chemical known as TFA in European wines have risen “alarmingly” in recent decades, according to analysis, prompting fears that contamination will breach a planetary boundary.
Researchers from Pesticide Action Network Europe tested 49 bottles of commercial wine to see how TFA contamination in food and drink had progressed. They found levels of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a breakdown product of long-lasting Pfas chemicals that carries possible fertility risks, far above those previously measured in water.
Wines produced before 1988 showed no trace of TFA, the researchers found, but those after 2010 showed a steep rise in contamination. Organic and conventional wines showed a rise in TFA contamination, but levels in organic varieties tended to be 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,” said Salomé Roynel from Pesticide Action Network Europe, which has called on the European Commission and EU member states to ban Pfas pesticides.
The researchers used 10 Austrian cellar wines from as early as 1974 – before policy changes they suspect led to the widespread use of precursor chemicals to TFA – as well as 16 wines bought in Austrian supermarkets from vintages between 2021 and 2024.
When the initial analysis revealed unexpectedly high levels of TFA contamination, they asked partners across Europe to contribute samples from their own countries.
The results from 10 European countries showed no detectable amounts of TFA in old wines; a “modest increase” in concentrations from 13µg/l to 21µg/l between 1988 and 2010; and a “sharp rise” thereafter, reaching an average of 121µg/l in the most recent wines.
PFAS are chemicals that are widely used in consumer products, some of which have been shown to have harmful effects on people.
Authorities have historically not been troubled by potential health effects of TFA contamination, but recent studies in mammals have suggested it poses risks to reproductive health. Last year, the German chemical regulator proposed classifying TFA as toxic to reproduction at the European level.
A study in October argued the persistent nature of the substance and the growth in concentrations imply that TFA meets the criteria of a “planetary boundary threat for novel entities”, with increasing planetary-scale exposure that could have potential irreversible disruptive impacts on vital Earth system processes.
Hans Peter Arp, a researcher at Norwegian University of Science and Technology and lead author of the study, who was not involved in the Pesticide Action Network report, said that although the new research was only a preliminary screening, the results were “expected and shocking”.
“Overall they are consistent with what the scientific community knows about the alarming rise of TFA in essentially anything we can measure,” he said. “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.”
after newsletter promotion
The main sources of TFA are thought to be fluorinated refrigerants known as F-gases, which disperse globally, and Pfas pesticides, which are concentrated in agricultural soil. Concentrations of F-gases rose after the 1987 Montreal protocol banned ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons, while Pfas pesticides are thought to have become widespread in Europe in the 1990s.
A study in November using field data from southern Germany revealed a “significant increase” in TFA groundwater concentrations when comparing farmland with other land uses.
Gabriel Sigmund, a researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and co-author of the study, who was not involved in the Pesticide Action Network report, said TFA could not be degraded by natural processes and was very difficult and costly to remove during water treatment.
For most TFA precursor pesticides, there is little to no available data on their TFA formation rates, he added.
“This makes it very difficult to assess how much TFA formation and emission potential agricultural soils currently have, as accumulated pesticides can degrade and release TFA over time,” he said. “So even if we completely stopped the use of these pesticides now, we have to expect a further increase in TFA concentrations in our water resources and elsewhere over the next years.”
