The Botanist and the Vintner

[slkinsey]

I have been reading a very interesting book lately, The Botanist and the Vintner : How Wine Was Saved for the World by Christy Campbell. As the subtitle of the thread indicated, it's a book about the phylloxera aphid and the plague it caused among the vines of Europe in the mid-1800s. I recommend it very highly.

For those who are not aware, phylloxera (aka Daktulosphaira vitifoliae) is an aphid of American origin that is a grapevine parasite. It has a very complex lifecycle involving both above-ground forms that cause leaf galls and below-ground forms that are root suckers. American grapes (Vitis labrusca, V. berlandieri, V. riparia, etc.) have some natural resistance to phylloxera, but European grapes (Vitis vinifera) do not. Unfortunately, V. vinifera is the good king of grape for wine making.

Starting in around 1865, grape vines in France began to die for some unknown reason. This turned out to be the arrival of phylloxera in Europe. In only a few decades, most of the European wine-producing regions were infested with phylloxera and the wine industry was in a shambles after massive die-offs of the vinifera vines. Eventually it was determined that the solution was to graft traditional European vines that produce the wines we love onto American roots that can resist phylloxera. The journey from first "outbreak" to this solution is a fascinating one.

This was a time of tremendous social and economic change in France, as well as a period of great scientific progress. But you have to understand that evolution and natural selection -- the key theory informing the eventual solution to the phylloxera problem -- were still very controversial subjects. Darwin's The Origin of Species had been published less than ten years before the outbreak. It is almost impossible to underestimate the extent to which the phylloxera plague changed the face of France and Europe. Prior to the phylloxera, a peasant in the wine-growing regions could support himself and family making vin ordinaire from a small plot of grapes, and people would come down from the hills to work as vignerons during the growing and harvesting seasons. This all ended as the vines died off. Many small growers simply abandoned their plots. The economic devestation was tremendous, and the solution for many was to move to other areas of the world where the phylloxera was not to be found -- places like Algeria and South Africa and Australia. When the vines came back decades later, the entire social structure had changed.

It's also interesting to note that many growers took the opportunity presented by replanting with grafted rootstock to change varieties, or a change was dictated according to which European varieties were easier to graft to the available American rootstocks. Thus "the old varieties of Mourvèdre in Provence and Négrette in the Tarn were abandoned when they proved difficult to graft. The once Pinot-dominated vineyards of Sancerre were remade on grafts of Sauvignon to make a white wine which would be fêted in Paris. La Folle Blanche, the traditional grape for making brandy, was supplanted in the Charente by Ugni Blanc."

The author does a remarkable job of presenting a good amount of historical and scientific information in an easily-digestible form, and weaves a compelling and interesting story while he's at it. If you're interested in wine, put this book on your reading list.

[Phil Ward]

Here, Here,

I agree this was a fun and educational read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys wine.

I dogeared many a page for future reference.

Phil