Stephen Colbert Tries To Scare Us Off Perfectly Safe Nuclear Wine

The Fukushima disaster in 2011 is one of the most damaging nuclear crises in history, the result of an earthquake that begot a tidal wave that crashed into a nuclear plant. It resulted in significant loss of life, as well as contamination of water, seafood, rubble, and, per the New York Times, radioactive wild fuckin' boars. Terrifying. What's not terrifying? That Fukushima radioactive signature are now being found in California wines. Honestly. It's fine.

No, really, for real, it's fine, y'all. Here's the reassuring Times headline:

A new study from a French research center notes that 18 bottles of rosé and cabernet sauvignon from California were tested, all from later than 2009. The bottles, ah, bottled after Fukishima showed an increase in radioactive particles (in the cabernet bottles, the level was doubled). Per NYT:

Ingesting cesium-137 [the man-made radioactive isotope] can result in an elevated risk for cancer, but the level of radioactive material from Fukushima in food and drink in countries outside Japan has been too low to result in a health hazard, according to the World Health Organization.

(A cool side-note: the levels of radioactivity have been used to identify fraudulent bottles of wine. Wines that have cesium-137 couldn't have existed before the mid-1900s.)

Anyway, Stephen Colbert returned to his roots last night, and used his very best, Colbert Report ThreatDown voice to scare you off California wines. Presumably this is in hopes of keeping it all for himself. We're onto you, Colbert.