How America saved French wine

All French wine is from grapes grown on American roots. From the thousand dollar bottle on down to the swill, a little bit of the US of A is in every sip. Here’s why:

In the 1860’s nearly half the vineyards in France had fallen to a terrible blight. Vines, many of them decades old, were faltering, not producing grapes, then eventually dying. No one knew why. The blight lasted for over 15 years, closed over 4 million wineries, and devastated the French economy. The government offered a reward of 320,000 francs to anyone who could cure the problem.

A team of French biologists figured out the cause in 1870: an aphid, introduced from America, called phylloxera. This tiny insect would nest in the leaves (like the one I photographed above), hatch, fall to the ground, and consume the roots of the grape vine, eventually killing the plant.

Knowing the cause was a help, but there was no cure. Farmers tried pesticides and other chemicals. They left frogs under the plants, and let chickens roam the vines with the hope that they would eat the phylloxera. None of these ideas worked. It was Leo Laliman and Gaston Bazille, a team of previously unknown wine growers and viticulturists, who suggested the solution of grafting America’s phylloxera-resistant rootstock on to French vines. Their solution worked, and over the following years there was a great reconstruction of the wineries and their vines, and eventually the wine industry returned to normal.

No cure to phylloxera has been found, and this practice continues today. Every vine I’ve worked on or seen since arriving to France has a graft point near the base. The young vines still have a covering of wax over their graft point, like this:

That bark covered stick is a chunk of harvested American rootstock. An inch-long portion of a French vine was grafted on top, and has since grown into several new, green vines. Though the plant will likely contract phylloxera (many vines have diseased leaves like those in the top photo), the plant will remain strong and hopefully produce grapes for decades to come. That American rootstock will also attempt to grow vines, and their removal is one of the common chores on all wineries. In fact, that’s what I spent most of this morning doing with a spade and pruning shears.

As for Leo and Gaston, they did not receive the 320,000 reward. The French government argued they had not cured the blight, but only stopped it from occurring.