SC - There are no old world grapes.

[david friedman]

At 12:01 PM -0600 12/20/97, jeffrey s heilveil wrote:
>I was going to stay out of this one, but I feel I no longer have a choice.
>It turns out that earlier in our history, a bug, the grape phylloxera, got
>into Europe form the Americas and began decimating the roots of European
>grapes.  From there, all of the European wine industry was in trouble.
>The only way that the were able to continue growing grapes was by
>importing American root stocks, and grafting European varieties on them.
>The reason is that American grapes had been selected such that only
>strains that were resistant to the phylloxera were able to survive (high
>predation pressure).  So ineffect, there is no longer extant "old world"
>grapes, because even the mighty french have had to rely on American root
>stocks.  (And boy do they love that...)

But there is still a legitimate distinction between old world grapes
grafted to new world roots and new world grapes (Concord et. al.). Most
dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees are dwarfed by grafting to rootstock of a
related species, I think often quince--but a semi-dwarf golden delicious
bears golden delicious apples, not quinces. I don't know if the root stock
affects the characteristics of the grapes at all, but I wouldn't it expect
it to be the major factor.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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