

The mid to late 1800s was a very difficult time for the European wine grape industry. New pests associated with native North American grape species made their way to the "Old World" because of transport between the continents. I recently wrote about how a fungal disease called downy mildew nearly destroyed the industry until it was saved by the accidental discovery of an effective chemical fungicide.

In today's post I'm going to talk about an insect pest that was introduced to Europe in the same era. It was a a root feeding relative of aphid called Phylloxera. Native American grapes are quite tolerant to it, but when it started attacking the roots of the European, Vitis vinifera grapes it began debilitating and finally killing the vines. It may have arrived in the 1850s, but was first recognized in 1863. This was an extremely traumatic economic and social crisis. More than 1 million hectares of vines were killed and many more debilitated before a solution was finally found.



In this case the ultimate solution was found via genetics (There are many good sources about the extended drama and real economic suffering associated with this this crisis - see links below)

1888 drawing of what is now classified as Daktulosphaira vitifoliae

The Genetic-based Technology Solution

The solution to Phylloxera that was ultimately applied seems obvious with hindsight.



Since the North American grape species had always tolerated this pest, why not use them as "rootstocks" and graft the revered European varieties on top of them?



Grafting of desired varieties onto the roots of less desirable, but either more hardy or already established versions of the same crop was not a new idea. That had been practiced for thousands of years for many tree and vine crops. The ancient Hebrew and Christian scriptures are full of literary images based on the concept of grafting. It was an ancient, practical solution - but what it amounted to was a rather dramatic "genetic modification" of the roots of millions acres of European grapes (and eventually grapes around the world).

This idea of grafting onto foreign, low quality grapes was hard to swallow for much of the French wine community of the day. Their questions included:

Will treasured, traditional varieties like Pinot Noir grafted on this inferior sort of grape still make a classic red Burgundy worthy of each specific appellation in that district?

Will this new reality mess with the quality that was traditionally achieved with complex blend of varieties in a region like Bordeaux?

Will this new pest eventually overcome this solution?

Should wine made from grapes grafted on American rootstocks be labeled as GMO?