Ep. 922 Vine & Prejudice Ch. 10 | Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding course? Do you wanna be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Learn more and apply now at viniti international dot com. Welcome to Professoria Tioshenza's newest book translated and narrated by Richard Huff. This latest publication is part of the mama jumbo shrimp series. Entitled, mama jumbo shrimp Guide to Vine and Prejudice, fake science, and the search for the perfect grape. This is a great way to get a sneak peek at the book before it hits the shelves, so listen in and let the geeky knowledge seep into your ears because we all need a little bit of Shinsa. Chapter ten. The search for the perfect vine. A dream comes true. Towards the end of the nineteen thirties, while Germany was embracing radical Eugenic theories, which advocated the creation of the perfect man, An area of research in the agricultural field was developing through genetic improvement techniques. These were the first practical applications of Darwin and Mendo's theories in the Viticultural field. The arrival of American diseases had been an important accelerator of research. The Muckenberg Institute in Near Berlin led by Erwin Bauer and Bernard Huzfeld set itself the ambitious goal of creating the ideal vine, a Phoenix vine that from the very first appearance of phylloxera in Europe represented the dream and the torment of scientists and botanists all over the world. Unlike France, which followed the classic path in the search for resistance through interspecific crossing, Germany, for ideological reasons related to the racial laws of nineteen thirty five prohibited the crossing of American and European vines. In fact, Germany had developed a selection project through successive cycles of self fertilization of Viti Swinifera. With the aim of favoring the emergence of individuals, in which the characteristics of resistance were the result of genetic segregation processes. By sowing about ten million rising seeds, eight plants that tolerated mildew were created. This finding was communicated to the scientific world at the international congress of wine and wine in nineteen thirty eight, but the onset of war prevented these results from being properly disseminated and evaluated. Last well known is the use in Bauer and Whosefeld's genetic improvement programs of vines from the German colonies in Azerbaijan and Georgia, which had been cultivated in the South Caucasus since the early nineteenth century. Giving rise to a flourishing Viticulture, which had enriched the botanical collections of Freddie William the fourth, San Jose Palace in potsdam since eighteen forty. Among the vines, brought by the young German, georgian, Emperor, a roloff. There were some plants that showed a good tolerance to downy mildew and powdery mildew, and which were then used by researchers of the Keiser Wilham Institute in Mckenberg to introduce resistance in German varieties. On this occasion, they also remembered a study published by Nikolai Valinglov in nineteen thirty five on the importance of using plants from very diverse geographical regions from each other and in particular for vines from the caucus as a component for crossbreeding. The results of these studies represented for the first time at the International Viticulture Congress in Paris in nineteen thirty seven. And raised lively objections on the part of the French researchers who disputed the possibility of obtaining disease resistant fines through crossing only European species. Including those of Caucasian origin and subsequent self fertilization. The brilliant intuitions of the VAVilov School and of the German researchers were confirmed in two thousand and seven with the successful sequencing of the pinot noir grape by the fondazione Emond Mach in which a large number of genes related to disease resistance were identified Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. Understanding the pinot noir genome could eventually provide a valuable tool for creating disease resistant varieties. Without altering the quality of the resulting wine. Recent economic and social events, as well as growing consumer demand for wines obtained from grapes produced with less chemicals has given new impetus for genetic improvement projects related to resistance. The first results of this new cycle of crossings, which sees Italy ahead of other countries are represented by the ten vines developed by the university of Yudena in collaboration with Vivaiko Prativa Ramshedo alongside Fluidian entrepreneurs that are now listed in the official National Register of varieties authorized for cultivation. Can we then consider the objective of the ideal vine achieved? For various reasons, we must unfortunately note that the goal of the perfect vine has not yet been achieved. There are regulatory difficulties. European legislation does not yet allow the use of resistant wines in the production of dock wines and many Italian regions have not allowed their cultivation in the territories they administer and compositional problems. For some resistant to red berries, the contents of di glucosidic anthocyanins are not compatible with the European standard for these reasons and to broaden the consensus among those winemakers who believe in their native wines, as well as continuing to follow the path of recurrent crossing by introducing Etalic varieties, new research approaches are needed. The first, which can be defined traditional, consists of the use of a source of resistance of varieties from the Caucasian and Trans Caucasian regions, which due to their centuries old use in the establishment of new vineyards can be propagated by seed and have good tolerance to cryptographic diseases. In nineteen forty seven at the seventh World Congress of wine and wine, negral, a people of Vavilovs had reported this peculiarity describing some varieties belonging to the Black Sea basin which not only showed good tolerance to cryptogamic diseases, but which also trim limited these characteristics to their offspring. This tolerance to powdery mildew has also been confirmed recently in a table grape found on the silk road, the Kishmesh, Badkana, and in some George and wine grape varieties. But the future is reserving some very interesting surprises for European winemakers. The progress of knowledge derived from the discovery of restriction enzymes in the nineteen seventies of the total potency of plant cells around the nineteen eighties, the creation of the first transgenic plant in nineteen eighty three, and finally, the decryption of the genome of the vine published in the second half of the nineteen nineties will allow the application of the so called genome correction or genome editing. Through the creation of cis genetic and inter genetic individuals, slim Italian vines, will be able to resist cryptogymic diseases by promoting the expression of genes that code for the synthesis of antifungal substances without other traits of the genome carrying unwanted qualitative characteristics, being able to express themselves in the plant as it happens instead in the crossing. Without going into methodological details, however, It is important to state that these are not GMOs, but plants that can be considered as clones as the genetic variation is minimal and limited, similarly to what happens spontaneously in nature through mutations. However, it is not a simple intervention. It will take a few years to fine tune the transformation techniques, especially with regard to the regeneration of calluses and to verify the effect of genetic intervention on the quality of wines at a viticulturo and on a logical level. Furthermore, only a few vines, those that have the greatest economic impact on the image of Italian wine, or that our grown intensely populated areas will be transformed in a first phase. The motto of this ambitious project could be the expression which the dying ghosts repeated and which he made his first pronounce, mayer leaked, more light, where the light brought by the discoveries of genetics should illuminate our Viticulture in the coming years It also remains to clarify what the behavior of the European Union will be in the classification of these plants and subsequently in the use of these clones in the dot wine specifications. And in the intellectual property of the transformed variety. Some might be tempted by the thought that the results obtained from the correction of the genome may represent an optical to the spread of organic Viticulture Exactly. The opposite is true. In what way, organic agriculture is rapidly evolving from an alternative to defense with systemic chemistry to a production system, which sticks into account the new perception that the consumer has of the quality of wine increasingly linked to the social environment of production and therefore towards an alliance for the environment and common good Resistant vines, therefore, represent an obligatory step towards this new concept of sustainability and compliance with the objectives of the recovery plan in order for genome editing to have a prospect of success, a prerequisite is necessary, the anthropological intention to share the research project. What does this mean? That it is necessary to have courage to face together researchers and producers, the risks and fears that have prevented genetic innovation in recent years, can't said, have the courage to know. The interference of RNA represents a new biotechnological tool for the control of fungal pathogens of the vine. The effectiveness of RNA is made possible by the presence in the vine of a susceptibility gene, which acts in a certain sense as a target gene that allows the parasite to identify the host to attack. This technique, although not yet regulated at European level, will probably fall outside district regulations on GMOs being free of transgreens, the exogenous application of polyneucleotides that can influence the RNA levels of important virulence related plant genes without modifying the host genome opens up new opportunities for the development of new scientific techniques and genetic strategies. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Vineetli Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at the Natilie international dot com. For courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast and catch us on SoundCloud, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at Italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Living, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, quests and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine podcast dot com.