Michel Bettane makes the case for the adaptability, versatility, and resilience of Vitis vinifera.
It amazes me that wine growers can be so naive as to believe that the effects of climate change may not only be offset by technology but that solutions such as interspecific hybridization or, worse still, genetic engineering, actually represent the acme of sustainable viticulture. When has a decent wine ever been made from anything other than the fruit of the grapevine, Vitis vinifera? Answer: never. From Baco to Vidal, there is not a single French hybridist in recent history who has ever produced a wine that was in any way memorable. The same goes for their Swiss, Austrian, and German counterparts, working not with interspecies hybrids (such as Baco et al) but with cultivars (Gamay with Reichensteiner, say). Hybrid grapes certainly ripen well and are more resistant to some diseases, reducing the need for chemical treatments. In the right hands, they can even produce quite a passable wine. Chinese Marselan, grown in the right soil, tastes pretty good, though it has yet to achieve the same finesse as wines made from the great, noble Vitis vinifera varieties, whether pure or crossed, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Manseng, or Chardonnay. Their origins may remain obscure, but their ability to capture the nuances of each plot is beyond question. Then there is South African Pinotage, without a doubt the world’s most successful Vitis vinifera cross and the best adapted to the weather in South Africa. But nobody would think of preferring it to Pinot Noir or Cinsault à Petits Grains. Why, then, do French agronomists continue to push for hybrids, even to the point of recommending them to policy-makers? Money certainly has something to do with it. That, and an optimism that completely ignores the history of Vitis vinifera—a centuries-old history of migration and acclimatizaton, gradually adapting to new locations and significant shifts in climate.
Vitis vinifera: A legacy of diversityÂ
We now know that repeated cycles of warming and cooling, whether due to volcanic eruptions or some other cause, contributed to the demise of the Roman vineyards (among others) and, more importantly, the revolutions, emigrations, and mass colonizations that have marked human history. We know, too, that harvest dates in Europe, some of them going back more than ten centuries, could vary by two months and more. Then came the advent of our AOC system, and suddenly history froze in its tracks. Suddenly the originality of our appellations lay in the grape variety, not in the fascinating process of plant migration that had produced it. Where would our Mediterranean wines be today if Garnacha and Monastrell—our Grenache and Mourvèdre—had not migrated from Spain? And who knows where they came from in the first place? What’s to say that they didn’t originate as far north as the plateaux of Anatolia and Georgia, then head south when the political tide turned? Like the Grenache, indeed, that arrived in Sardinia with the Crown of Aragon. Jura Savagnin took an even more circuitous route—from the Jura, to Champagne, Spain, and back again.Â
It’s thanks to such migrations that the Médoc and the Touraine are what they are today, planted to grapes that moved northward from their birthplace in the Pyrenean foothills. Even that most quintessentially French of all grapes, Pinot Noir, began life on the borders of the Rhine, planted there by the Cistercian monks of Burgundy long before Riesling made an appearance. Which brings me nicely to the Burgundian concept of climat—that interplay of soil, rain, wind, sun, and light that shapes the taste and personality of every vineyard on Earth. Year after year, that personality has had its edges smoothed out by wine growers in pursuit of improved yield management. Vines have been uprooted and replaced with one or more varieties better suited to the site, a process of trial and error that finished the reputation of our poor old Gamay, forever considered the degenerate son of Pinot Noir, and undermined the wine status quo. Or so said the wine authorities, appalled to see our great, noble vines planted outside those areas sanctioned by long-standing tradition.
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Wine snobbery knows no bounds. The truth is that grape varieties are not tied to any particular region and should be judged on performance alone. In the days when we knew less but observed more, wines were never registered, much less sold, under the name of the grape variety. What mattered to the buyer, whether merchant or wine drinker, was the location of the individual plot—who owned it or who gave it its nickname; whether there was a village, river, or island nearby; and whether it was planted to generic varieties such as Malvoisie or Pineau. The same variety indeed could go by several different names depending on where it grew, even in vineyards just a few kilometers apart. Trousseau—surprise, surprise—long thought to be the exclusive preserve of the Jura, accounts for thousands of hectares of plantings in Portugal; Sangiovese has spawned so many subvarieties that the Tuscans have lost count, ditto Nebbiolo in Piedmont. And let’s not forget Mourvèdre, alias Mataro, and Zinfandel, alias Primitivo. So, please, dear scientists, if you do find that holy grail that might save our vineyards, please sit on it until disaster looms. In the meantime, let us be thankful that tradition and progress have always gone hand in hand in the wine world, leaving a legacy of diversity that we must continue to cherish and protect. But make no mistake, it is and always will be effort and discipline that make agriculture—and first among its forms, viticulture—the mother of all cultures.Â
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