Word: phylloxeras
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...took but a handful of small, yellow insects hitchhiking on an American grapevine imported around 1850 to change French wine forever. In the aftermath of the phylloxera blight, which devastated vineyards across the country, multitudes of native varietals were never replanted in favor of others more productive or disease-resistant. Since then, more still have been abandoned as French winemakers, like those the world over, began growing the likes of chardonnay and merlot to offer standardized global bouquets. Today, though, a few are seeking to rise above the glut, by bringing back the forgotten varietals of France's viticultural past...
...Sologne, central France, winemaker Henry Marionnet recalled the words of the expert who authenticated the plot's age a decade ago: "You are in the presence of an eternal vine." The rare Loire varietal was introduced in 1519 under François I, and that this patch survived the phylloxera epidemic is as miraculous an anomaly as the nectar it produces. With blinding minerality and peach notes "it's a wine from another world," says Marionnet of his cuvée Provignage. (See reviews of 50 American wines...
...giant of Napa Valley focused on the South of France in the early '90s, when a mutant strain of phylloxera grub was eating its way through California's vineyards. Mondavi looked abroad to satisfy U.S. consumer demand for wine, which was increasing 30% each year. The company found what it was looking for in the Languedoc, where grape growers were starting to market single-variety wines. The Languedoc was also a region that was abandoning bulk production in favor of high-quality winemaking. "If you look at the climate and the soils here, you've got every element you need...
Grape growers in Northern California have not one but two of these hungry bugs to contend with. About 30,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties, site of the state's most prestigious vineyards, will eventually have to be replanted because of infestation by minute root lice called phylloxera. Now many of those same vineyards, as well as others in Lake and Mendocino counties, are battling even more dangerous pests: tiny insects called "sharpshooters," which spread a bacterium that causes Pierce's disease...
...Phylloxera can be stymied by regrafting grape buds onto resistant varieties of rootstock. No such defense is available against PD. The sharpshooter aphids attack the moisture-carrying vessels of vines and can kill them off in a year. Particularly vulnerable are vineyards near lakes and rivers, where the bug lives, since spraying with pesticides is banned because of the danger to fish and water. In case of a sharpshooter onslaught, says viticulturist Jim Wolpert of the University of California at Davis, a grower's only recourse is to "yank the vines and start over...