Wine Education Wednesdays: The Phylloxera Outbreak
We’ve got an interesting little history lesson for you today – all about how phylloxera, a 19th century vineyard pest, almost wiped out the entire population of European vines. Imagine a world without good wine!
In 1866, an aphid known as ‘phylloxera’ was discovered in the vineyards of the Southern Rhône and Languedoc. The pest, native to North America, was accidentally brought to Europe and threatened to wipe out the entire vitis vinifera vine family.
Phylloxera has a complex life cycle, but it is the louse stage that poses the biggest problem for the vines, as it feasts on their root systems, slowly weakening and eventually killing the plant. American vines (a different species to those that grow in Europe) had evolved with phylloxera and had developed tactics for dealing with the pest – filling the mouths of the louse with a sticky sap and clogging the wounds in the roots to prevent infection – and were therefore unaffected by the outbreak.
The pest was also spreading throughout Europe at an alarming rate. In 1869 it had reached Bordeaux, in 1871 it was in Portugal and Turkey, by 1875 it was found in Italy, and had even reached Australia by 1876. Unfortunately, wines produced from American vines were thought to have undesirable flavour profiles, and so making wines for the rest of time with these vines was not an option – especially for the French.
By the late 1870’s a couple of French botanists and an American entomologist had come up with the idea of ‘grafting’ the top of a European vine to the bottom of an American one – sounds pretty wacky, but thankfully(!) it worked.
Naturally there was some trial and error finding the best rootstocks for the various soil types – but ultimately, the vines were protected from phylloxera by the American rootstocks, whilst still producing European grapes thanks to the vitis vinifera cuttings that had been grafted to them. If you are struggling to imagine what grafting looks like – have a look at the images with the wax around the baby vine trunks. The two vine species have literally been welded together.
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Today, phylloxera affects almost every vineyard in the world – there are only a handful of places where this pesky pest is yet to invade, and incredibly strict quarantine rules are enforced in these areas to ensure it is kept out.
These are relatively rare wines so if you ever see a bottle with ‘un-grafted vines’ on the label – grab it and see what you think! The most famous places to find un-grafted vines include South Australia, Chile, and on the Greek island of Santorini, but we also have a couple in stock from Catena Zapata and a rather special bottle from Liber Pater.
Cheers!
