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The New Phylloxera
Finding the silver lining for wine during the COVID-19 pandemic
By Monica Larner (Robert Parker – The Wine Advocate)
By 1881, when the International Phylloxera Congress was convened in Bordeaux, the wine industry faced a global catastrophic threat. Vineyards across Europe were decimated, killed underground at their roots by a mysterious and virulent disease. The disease reproduced asexually at logarithmic speed, creating expanding circular rings of contagion in one vineyard that were inadvertently transported to adjacent vineyards where deadly new hot spots would emerge.
The outbreak could not be contained, and eventually spread from France to the rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and back to the United States, ironically, where it originated. It spread stealthily and decisively by ship, locomotive, cart and even in the bottom of a boot. Coming just a few decades after the painful Great Potato Famine that redrawn global migration maps, the Great Wine Blight had come full circle around the world causing more serious economic and social consequences. Agricultural systems and cultural and political institutions changed forever. At its peak, the entire wine industry risked total collapse.
Today, our industry faces a new pandemic threat. Only this time it's a biological threat to humans, not vines. It comes from a disease that paradoxically limits our ability to inhale oxygen, not unlike the way a root disease limits a plant's ability to absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is poised to disrupt the wine industry by threatening production, shutting down distribution channels, and temporarily but abruptly cutting off fine wine from its natural markets and loyal consumers in restaurants, small retail stores, and direct to -Consumer tasting rooms. Not since the 19th century has wine faced such profound and far-reaching challenges. Much about the coronavirus feels like a repeat of phylloxera.
What lessons did we learn from phylloxera?
Dactylasphaera vitifoliae, commonly known as phylloxera, is a microscopic insect, a yellowish aphid that feeds on the roots of vines. It makes no distinction between vines planted at random in a peasant's yard or those in the most coveted and carefully tended cru classé vineyards of a distinguished castle. In death and destruction, it is the great equalizer. Once infected, farmers had no choice but to uproot their vineyards and burn the dying wood in giant bonfires.
Even at the time of the emergency congress in Bordeaux in 1881, there were few working theories about the cause of the disease. Some suggested it had to do with changing weather patterns, others hypothesized it stemmed from poor agricultural practices. Some ignored it as God's wrath or punishment for our vices. The outlook was bleak: between two-thirds and nine-tenths of all vineyards in Europe had disappeared.
However, phylloxera was finally overcome at the dawn of a new century, thanks to a handshake between agriculture and science. It was never definitively defeated, because the little louse still lives and continues to produce periodic outbreaks, but we have surely put it in our rearview mirror.
The years after phylloxera opened an exciting new chapter for wine, and new fortunes too, thanks to the lessons learned during that darkest time. Wine would make the biggest leap of all, going from a humble food to an international luxury good, a lifestyle aspiration that transcends travel and food, and a significant percentage of the gross domestic product for its largest producing countries. big.
Historians debate the many positive results that phylloxera had on the wine industry, and most agree on at least three general benefits. First, and most concretely, we have our current designation of origin regulations that arose largely due to the disease. Wine tastes better, ages longer and commands higher prices thanks to geographical limits applied to growing areas, yield limits and defined production methods. When replanting began on a large scale following phylloxera, government agencies implemented production guidelines in the form of AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) classifications in France, DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) in Italy, and finally AVA designations ( American Viticultural Area) in the United States. These systems began in France in 1935, and every major wine region in the world today is home to similar legislative bodies that establish geographic and quality production standards for the mutual benefit of winegrower and consumer.
The second and third results are slightly less tangible, and remain works in progress to this day. On the one hand, we have a better understanding of the biological consequences of globalization thanks to our experience with phylloxera. On the other hand, we have created totally collaborative synergies for the comprehensive resolution of problems between agriculture, science and government institutions.
The question now is: what opportunities, if any, might we get after this new coronavirus crisis has subsided? It is too early to draw any real conclusions, and the realities of fear, uncertainty and loss weigh heavily in this active and destructive period of the pandemic. However, we can begin to see some glimmers of optimism shining and shining in the very remote distance.
Appreciating our biodiversity.
One can't help but feel that nature is making fun of us. We've all seen images of jellyfish in the crystalline canals of Venice's lagoon, sea turtles nesting on quiet beaches, badgers wandering through closed shop windows in Florence, wild boars roaming freely in Rome, squirrels furiously taking over Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, coyotes howling in downtown San Francisco or a pride of lazy lions dozing on the warm asphalt of an empty highway in South Africa. This photographic evidence serves to remind us that nature moves on its own schedule, with or without us. Is he giving us a flirtatious eye or wagging the proverbial finger at us? The image that resonates most with me is that of the blades of grass growing tall and strong among the sampietrini, the cobblestone pavement in Rome's Piazza Navona. In fact, nothing is eternal in the Eternal City, except grass.
If we suspect we are mocking on a deep, visceral level, we will likely be asked to reconsider how we interact with our planet and how we can better manage our invasive tendencies toward fragile ecosystems. We are urged to recalculate our dynamics with the natural world and the cost we place on biodiversity. We got a first lesson on this topic thanks to phylloxera, but now we're getting an intense crash course thanks to COVID-19.
The wine community is in a unique position to champion these causes. On the one hand, we traffic in and embrace biodiversity, thanks to our passionate respect for grape varieties, harvest, soils, weather patterns, and the magical confluence of environmental factors that fuel our almost mythical notion of terroir. As a wine writer, I write hundreds of thousands of words per year, all meticulously focused on a single specimen of fruit, the wine grape. I am sure that no other fruit on the planet is the subject of such obsessive and abundant prose. My work constitutes one tome in a massive library of content produced by my colleagues and fellow wine scribes. Our collaboration is a recorded history of grape biodiversity.
Winegrowers are the physical guardians of that biodiversity, and while there is always room for improvement, good wine is a pioneering force in sustainable, organic and biodynamic agricultural practices. In fact, the true creed of good wine is expressed as: “let nature do its thing,” “good wine begins in the vineyard,” and “good wine begins with good fruit.” I have never met a winemaker who is comfortable with taking full credit for his wine creation. Top billing in fine wines always goes to Mother Nature. Wine was one of the first commercial industries to reap the benefits of green buildings, with underground cellars instead of air conditioning and gravity instead of pumps. These environmentally friendly initiatives are in the DNA of wine.
Sure, we can use this time during the lockdown to reflect on our own sustainability achievements, and we can chart a course for more significant systematic improvement. More importantly, we must push for synergies between other areas of agriculture, as well as the large food and travel industries to create a collaborative movement to achieve our goals.
Phylloxera was eventually solved thanks to a coalition of international agriculture, government, and research interests. The challenge would mark the beginning of the so-called Big Science, defined as scientific progress driven by the coordinated efforts of governments and international organizations during and after World War II. Big Science enjoyed large-scale funding and stimulated such lofty and ambitious achievements as high-energy physics, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Apollo program. If science was great then, it must be even greater today. Bigger Science is key to protecting our planet after the virus.
During this time of COVID-19, we long for our old routines, dream of returning to our pre-lockdown activities (I'd be happy with a haircut), and wish for things to get back to normal. know. In truth, none of us should want to go back to normal. We can aspire to more. We should jump beyond normal and go straight to improving once this is all over.
Rflee in place.
There is no better place to be locked up than in a vineyard. I am writing this essay from my family's property in California. Around the world, we have far surpassed the Italian quaranta giorni, or “forty days,” after which quarantine is named. Beyond my computer screen is a window that opens onto a panorama of ancient oaks, tall grasses, and splashes of bright green from out-of-dormancy vines.
Every afternoon, I walk through the vineyard and appreciate countless new discoveries that I feverishly try to document with my iPhone camera. These are little snapshots of the sudden burst of energy that comes with bud break, the momentous unfolding of new leaves and now the miraculous birth of tiny clusters or swollen inflorescence. The growing season began with more green intensity than I remember from any spring in my past. It feels like the first time I really saw a vineyard awake. It feels like the first time I stopped to smell grape blossoms, with those fleeting, ephemeral aromas of honey and violets carried on a gentle breeze.
Speaking for myself, I haven't experienced such an intense moment of creativity, new ideas, and enthusiasm for retrospective projects since I was 20 years old. My thinking has suddenly become so lucid, almost so surprising. I walk around the house with a small notepad in the front pocket of my baggy hoodie so I can jot down all these exciting new ideas before they are overshadowed by the next wave of creative thinking. Lockdown has done wonders for my tired, stressed and fatigued brain.
There is great value in staying home and purpose in being locked in place. On the one hand, we are forced to think locally. Our summer travel plans have been canceled and hopefully refunded, our children are learning at home, and special efforts are being made to care for our elderly. We're trying new recipes, feeding our starter yeast to bake bread, and learning old hobbies. We are physically closer to all the things and people that are most important to us. That net of aspiration that was once cast far away to distant and exotic destinations with such restless trepidation is now closed and tucked away in its place, at home.
Phylloxera demonstrated the dangers of the movement. It demonstrated that the disease could spread across continents with devastating consequences. That lesson is being tragically expanded to the nth degree today. Back-to-back news cycles have charted the course of a new virus that likely spread from a bat or other animal or laboratory to a person in one corner of the world to a person in another corner with whiplash speed thanks to 40 million flights. commercials that our planet accommodates in a normal year.
Movement, or forward momentum, is a human aspiration and is often synonymous with progress, personal enrichment, and financial prowess. However, staying home is an equally important value that is articulated thanks to catchy slogans such as Support Local, Staycation, Farm to Table, Chilometro Zero, Food Miles and many of the social and sustainability movements sparked by grassroots groups such as Slow Food .
Faster, fresher and friendlier is the recipe we need to change the consumer mentality. European countries achieve these goals reasonably well thanks to the strong local and regional identities assigned to wine and food. However, the shortcomings of globalized economies are painfully exposed during a global pandemic.
Wine in corporate distribution reportedly sells well, but small family wineries face devastating economic consequences despite their eagerness to deliver, discount, or do whatever it takes to move their bottles within local range. Importers started the year on shaky feet due to tariff threats, and as a result, many European wines were never shipped. We have a near-total closure of smaller distribution channels, from retail (wine stores) to venues (wine bars and restaurants) and direct to consumer (tasting rooms). The fate of the neighborhood restaurant is particularly terrifying, and some are already selling their wine libraries to pay the rent. Now that the growing season has begun with such vigor, wineries will have a difficult time finding labor for summer canopy management, fruit thinning and harvesting. Some growers have already suggested they could be forced to let their fruit rot on the vines if they cannot find seasonal workers to pick it.
Despite these immense challenges, vineyards tend to be fertile ground for optimistic thinking. Giorgio Rivetti of La Spinetta in Piedmont said it best: “We are farmers, and when you lose three out of ten crops to hail or bad weather like we do in Barolo, you instinctively know how to deal with a crisis like the coronavirus. The virus is like any other hail year for us.”
The art of grafting.
Phylloxera was finally overcome when it was discovered that European vines would succumb to the plague, but that American vines could defend themselves and survive. All European wine grapes, up to 10,000 varieties and counting, are part of the Vitis vinifera species. By the simple fact of being a monoculture, they are more vulnerable to infestations and diseases. American grapevine species such as Vitis labrusca evolved to develop natural defenses and immunities through mutation. Its roots create a secretion, like glue, that smothers the feeding insect and repels it. If the roots are damaged, the American vine responds with a protective layer of tissue like a Band-Aid.
Due to lax agricultural regulations in the 19th century, enthusiastic botanists eagerly exchanged plant material from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They were not aware of the negative impacts produced when previously isolated biotypes were mixed indiscriminately. Researchers say phylloxera was native to the eastern part of the United States, and came on ships carrying American vine clippings or other plant samples bound for Europe sometime in the mid-1800s. The epidemic spread quickly. all over the world, saving only isolated pockets in South America, Australia, Colares in Portugal and some Mediterranean islands. However, the disease rebounded back to the United States, because by then American winegrowers had embraced Vitis vinifera and a European wine culture. Once finally isolated, French scientists aptly named the disease phylloxera vastatrix, or "the ravager."
Fixing phylloxera turned out to be surprisingly simple. If European vines were grafted onto American rootstocks, the vines would gain resistance and the wine would be saved. With the exception of a few remote vineyards that managed to survive (mostly planted in sandy soils that naturally inhibit disease), virtually every vineyard we know today represents a graft of genetic material from the Old and New World.
Grafting has been used as a literary metaphor in poetry and writing since the time of the ancients. Those of us who love Italian wine often refer to the encyclopedia of knowledge (astronomy, mathematics, botany, agriculture, horticulture and more) left to us by Pliny the Elder. His work, Naturalis Historia, provides a detailed record of the native grapes that made wine during the Roman Empire and continue to produce many of the wines we drink today.
Classicists seized on the concept of graft, expanding its imaginary meaning to include a union of opposites or a complex transition between worlds. It is a metaphor for social interactions between various economic classes, and is a political symbol of imperial dominance in foreign lands. It is an allegory of fertility and the union of a man and a woman or that of a father and a son. Grafting is a metaphor for the passage between life and death and, ultimately, our fragile relationship between God and nature.
When boiled down to its essence, it is a symbol of one thing: resistance. If the strength of the human and natural worlds helped us emerge victorious from the ravages of the past, we can count on the resilience to carry us forward now.
