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pinniped1 t1_j0b83rt wrote

This is why all modern European wines have faint undertones of Busch Light.

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PoopMobile9000 t1_j0cmqjy wrote

Naw, NorCal wines have been better than Europe for years.

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EpsomHorse t1_j0eka5h wrote

> Naw, NorCal wines have been better than Europe for years.

Those snooty Europeans just can't replicate the subtle brilliance of Gallo or Thunderbird.

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PoopMobile9000 t1_j0h7f7q wrote

Right, just like the only Dutch beer is Heineken and the only German beer is Beck’s.

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italageordie t1_j0bck6z wrote

I work in northern Italy, growing and grafting European heads to American roots, and it's incredibly labour intensive. We are currently at the end of a cycle, whereby the grafted plants are each individually checked by hand to ensure the graft has taken, the roots are good, and that there are no other issues, and those that pass have the heads individually trimmed by hand before being packed to be transported around the world. There's literally millions of plants, and this is just one part of job that is still mostly done by hand. It's amazing the effort that goes into it, and wish it was more widely known.

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DramaticTurnover7304 t1_j0cefmu wrote

And are you guys good at it? I ask beacuse our profesors always warned us to be vigilant when examining italian Agricultural material( seed, seedlings, and all others) beacuse you guys are prone to scams and that is coming from a Balkan guy

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italageordie t1_j0cmh56 wrote

Honestly, it depends. The farmers all grow their own plant material, which eventually becomes the plant at the end, so it's not like they buy in plants and just graft them. Saying that, some farmers care less about the end product than others, and while we have been sorting them (we all come together to sort them through a cooperative), you can definitely see there's differences. Then you have other factors common to everyone who grows plants such as weather and soil. Finally, the workers themselves are almost always immigrant workers who aren't paid a great deal, and it's hot hard work, so there's that. But I reckon after sorting, you'd have a plant stock that is around 99% good stock. I'd also like to say that the guy I work for is pretty meticulous, you have to work hard and pay attention but he takes care of his workers, and the end result is that he has very few bad plants that come through normally, and it's always good to know you've been a part of that!

TL:DR The plants that are grown can be of varying quality, but after the sorting process, I wouldn't worry about buying the plants here.

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EpsomHorse t1_j0ejno8 wrote

Fascinating. But explain this to me - if Europe's grape vines have been being grafted onto American rootstock that is immune to this pest for a century or so, why has the pest not died out? Where is it hiding and biding its time?

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Hairydone t1_j0fqo4h wrote

The American vines can tolerate the pest. The pest can still exist and survive, it simply won’t kill the vine.

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italageordie t1_j0fxbdl wrote

You do see the eggs on the leaves of the American vines when you're trimming them at the beginning of summer. We are always told to tell the boss, but I'm not sure what he does about it.

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[deleted] t1_j0bllps wrote

[deleted]

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rapiertwit t1_j0bs3yf wrote

There's thousands of years of careful cultivation that go into those vines. You can't just take the American variety and breed it to reproduce each individual variety of grape, flavor-wise, in a few generations.

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jaa101 t1_j0bcj62 wrote

The American vines had developed tolerance to the pest because the pest came from America. So the whole disaster in European vineyards in the 19th century, where most of those in France and other countries were wiped out, was caused by an American pest. The continued existence of this pest means that the plants have to be laboriously grafted onto American root stock.

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PoopMobile9000 t1_j0cmsl4 wrote

Hell yeah suck it Europe. Tiny payback for smallpox but we’ll take what we can get.

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Elfere t1_j0b9lw7 wrote

I was under the impression that south American vines weren't affected and that to this day they still have their original stocks.

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dcrico20 t1_j0bbiop wrote

Phylloxera didn’t make it to much of the major SA wine growing areas like Chile where they were mostly isolated (Chile is the only wine-growing region in the world that never had a phylloxera outbreak.) Same is true in Australia where most of the vineyards still have their original root stocks (I believe it’s around 70%.) It’s not that these stocks were immune to it like the NA root stocks, it just never made it there. If it did surface in these regions, they would have to replace the stocks, but that hasn’t been necessary (yet.)

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TheRealRockNRolla t1_j0c7p7k wrote

>It’s not that these stocks were immune to it like the NA root stocks, it just never made it there. If it did surface in these regions, they would have to replace the stocks, but that hasn’t been necessary (yet.)

Well then. My mission is clear

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michilio t1_j0b4vyq wrote

It´s ongoing* existence.

Title´s first line feels ambigious to me. Reads a bit like the industry only started after using the American vines, instead on existing industry saved by using that imported vine.

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liarandathief t1_j0b5t4w wrote

I think it reads fine. If you're speaking in the present tense existence means currently existing.

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ladyships-a-legend t1_j0ba50r wrote

It’s still a problem worldwide however a fair amount of Australian vineyards are still phylloxera free

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salton OP t1_j0bam4g wrote

I'll remember that when the nukes fall and I make my way to your land.

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Omnizoom t1_j0bqa3r wrote

Phylloxera is quite the nasty little bug , it’s from NA though which is why grape varieties from Europe had 0 resistance to it , some hybrids are ok and unless you live close to a vineyard or forest any home grown grapes won’t have to worry about it since it doesn’t spread far

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95accord t1_j0bb46c wrote

A blight that came from where exactly again?….

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Waldorama t1_j0c16cq wrote

The place the Europeans invaded en masse.

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RandomRDP t1_j0b5gq3 wrote

TIL the wine industry owes its existence to the thousands years old tradition, knowledge and varieties from Europe for existing in the first place.

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majorbummer6 t1_j0bbrnf wrote

I must be having deja vu because i saw this topic brought up in a different thread and someone replied word for word this comment.

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RandomRDP t1_j0bdp1e wrote

I saw the same thing. The title was OP’s comment so I thought I’d reply with the next.

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_Dnikeb t1_j0b5odv wrote

The grapes grown by Vitis labrusca (american grapevine) are SO good. I'm literally addicted to them. In my area we call them strawberry grapes.

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dcrico20 t1_j0bbssr wrote

They’re great for eating, but not so great for winemaking. Likewise, the grapes that are good for making wine aren’t very palatable to eat.

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AudibleNod t1_j0bamdq wrote

I went on some wine tasting tours in north Texas and they loooooove bringing this up.

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[deleted] t1_j0bfdau wrote

That’s because of T.V. Munson of Denison, Tx

“Munson made extensive use of American native grape species, and devoted a great deal of his life to collecting and documenting them. He released hundreds of named cultivars, but his work identifying American native grape (especially those from Texas) is of great significance today for their use in rootstock. Though breeding for wine quality seems to have occupied a great proportion of his effort, his work on rootstock development had the greatest impact on viticulture. This work provided European grape growers with phylloxera-resistant rootstocks, allowing them to recover from the devastating epidemic of the late 19th century while still growing the ancient Vitis vinifera cultivars. These rootstocks are still used worldwide. In honor of this work, the French government named him Chevalier du Merite Agricole of the French Legion of Honor, and Cognac, France, became a sister city to Munson's home of Denison, Tx.

The rootstocks that Munson recommended to the French were Texas native Vitis Berlandieri, cinerea and cordifolia (vulpina) grapes that were found in the central Texas hill country at Dog Ridge in Bell County near Temple, Texas. These wild grapes can still be found there.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Volney_Munson

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dasoomer t1_j0b8tyo wrote

I wonder if they hear a bald eagle when they open a bottle...

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emperor_scrotum_II t1_j0bf0vz wrote

I remember reading the exacts words of this title in a comment on another post just a few hours ago

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salton OP t1_j0bf44u wrote

I wonder how that happened.

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HPmoni t1_j0cpp81 wrote

You're welcome!

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