Ep. 811 SOS Special | Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

This episode is brought to you by the Italy International Academy, the toughest Italian wine program. One thousand candidates have produced two hundred and sixty two Italian wine ambassadors to date. Next courses in Hong Kong Russia, New York, and verona. Thank you, make the cut. Apply now at viniti international dot com. Welcome to our special SOS, everybody needs a bit of Shanza installment. This is a shout out to all the wine geeks out there. We need some feedback on the professor's new book, the English version of jumbo shrimp guide to the origins evolution and future of the grapevine. The Italian wine podcast is part of the mama jumbo shrimp brand, and mama jumbo shrimp is all about breaking down difficult concepts into small bite sized pieces. The issue here is that the new book is while a bit difficult to chew at this point. So we want to invite wine lovers out there to give us their input and advice to make the final product more reader friendly. So have added wine lovers. Don't be shy. Send your comments to info at italian wine podcast dot com. Now on to the show. Hello, everybody. My name is Stevie Kim, and welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This is a special installment of a new series. It's called reading. It's a reading with Richard Halph. Is that correct? I will get that. Good enough for me. Yes. Yeah. I'll get that right sooner later. He will be reading. I don't know if you guys have been following us. If you haven't check out our past installments of the reading of a new book. We haven't got a title yet for Professor Atulio Shenza's new book about racism and vine grapes. So, Richard, what will you be reading for us today? Okay. Well, This one, is from chapter seven of the book, and it's it's basically taking a really deep dive into the, the origins of the grape species. Okay. Alrighty. Take it away, Richard. For the renowned British naturalist Alfred Wallace, an important prerequisite for determining the region of origin of a particular species was the availability of fossils from the tertiary period. The Janice Vites possesses this prerequisite as evidenced by the extensive palaeontological evidence of prevenifera leaf implants found in Northern Europe, which are considered sufficiently evolved in an adaptive sense with well studied taxonomic relationships. The origin of divine and its biological evolution are singularly linked to two dramatic events in the history of the planet. Mass extinctions and the separation of the continents. The so called mass extinctions were catastrophic events that led to significant losses of plant and animal diversity, at least five major mass extinctions are known to have occurred. Those involving the vine at least indirectly occurred about two fifty million years ago in the Permian triassic period and again about sixty million years ago during the Critaceous Paliogen period. The third extinction event can be attributed to a series of massive volcanic eruptions that caused a dramatic change in the earth's climatic conditions with consequent increases in carbon dioxide and ozone concentration. The fifth extinction, which saw the disappearance of the dinosaurs, occurred in the cretaceous period, and was caused by the impact of a huge meteorite on the Yucatan Peninsula. The dust cloud that arose from the impact obscured the sun, preventing the photosynthesis of plants and leading to a devastating famine for the dinosaur population. Tectonic movement during the cretaceous period triggered the phenomenon of continental drift from the fracturing of Pangaea, the giant supercontinent, which began two hundred million years ago, two great land masses, Laresia and Godwana, were formed as well as the great mountain ranges of the Alps, the Andes, and the Perrenees. The first effect of the separation of the continents was to interrupt the integrity of the Ram Nallies, an order of plants to which the VITice family belonged. The evolutionary paths of the genre were subsequently separated as they had to adapt to the climatic characteristics of the newly formed environments in which they found themselves creating new taxa. About fifty to sixty million years ago, on the threshold of the tertiary or cenozoic period, the climate in Northern Europe was almost tropical with coral reefs, flora, and fauna comparable to the warmest areas of the earth in the current era. In this climatic phase, the VITice family of plants were mostly represented by the genus Caesus, to which the genus VITus is related. The climatic conditions gradually became hotter and drier pushing the vine species north. Where the increased humidity encouraged the formation of vast forests, which were more favorable to the vine, because they offered structural support to the tendrils, allowing the plant to climb. The fossil remains of vines in the form of the leaf imprints found in the Marl of Champagne and in the clays of Silesia are amongst the most ancient to be discovered belonging to the EOSin Strata of the early tertiary period. These findings in Northern Europe testified to the origin of genus Fritus from a more ancient species. About thirty five million years ago, in the middle of the Chernerzoic, the changing ocean currents his courses were modified by the separation of the continents caused the climate to curl down as a result, the flora took on different characteristics with the development of deciduous trees and the establishment of distinct seasonal variations. By the end of this era, the features of the tropical climate had disappeared in the deposits of the Latome formation in North Eastern, Colorado, and in the midnight mines of Central Europe, fossil leaves identified as belonging to Janice Rita have also been found. The fossil remains are numerous exceeding three hundred sites in Central Italy and southern France. The remains are even more significant dating back to the Plia Cheney book up to five point three million years ago. The great genetic variety was decimated by the significant glaciation of the quaternary period, which gradually pushed the only surviving vine species, which is Renifera, to the southernmost locations. A certain persistence of Viti Finifera has also been proven in interglacial periods with a great number of instances in the Caucasian Basin and in the mountains of Asia due to the shorter duration of the cold phases and the elevated position of the refuge sites. The leaf and pranks of these plants can be considered a transition between the American and the Asian type of VITis Vinifera. In particular, the secondary ribs and the shape of the lamina show a clear resemblance to those of fossilized and living American vine species. The wild forms of Vites Winifera in Europe are therefore relics of the flora of the tertiary period that were saved from the destruction wrought by the ice during the interglacials by birds interested in their berries guaranteeing continuity of the genetic flow by relocating the species to different latitudes. Okay. I'm going to pause at that point. That's the midway point in in chapter seven. But if you want, we can continue with the rest of that. Okay. What don't why don't you guys? Only seven minutes into their part. So I think you can continue Okay. If they haven't fallen asleep yet. Okay. Compared to eighteen thousand years ago, global sea levels have risen by about a hundred and twenty meters. This process has dramatically affected the climate, the evolution, and the migration of flora, fauna, and human species. It has been the starting point for the construction of the current landscape morphology and for the delimitation of the existing continental boundaries previously connected, but now separated by extended waterways, such as the Beringya, which became the Bering strait. Some recent finds of leaves and fossil clusters in Lasenia in the Valdal Pone in Northern Italy, have reignited interest in the territory in relation to the origin of the vine. In the mid-1800s, fossil remains, leaves, and rakes with berries of a genus with an uncertain taxonomic identity were found in the limestone of the tertiary period with many morphological similarities to the vine cultivated today. Together with the imprint of the leaf, the imprint of a fruiting cluster was also found in the form of a stock to which berries were attached. The remains belong to a genus of vine that had disappeared during the quaternary glaciations about two point five million years ago. This paleontological evidence, together with the remains of tropical plants such as the Fig, eucalyptus, and even coconuts confirm the existence of a tropical climate. Also noteworthy is the discovery of the Belham Knight Rushstrom squid like creatures that lived during the Jurassic period. Such fossils are commonly found in the Champagne Marrows and have an important palaeontological significance. These remains, however, are very different to those from northern Europe. And those from Central Italy and are more typical of those from temperate regions such as North America. Unlike the cluster of the current Vita chair, which usually have a more or less elongated shape, diseases have round clusters. As the length of the second and third axis of the main stems are very similar to each other, giving the cluster a globular shape. Furthermore, the axis of the flower bunches are much more elongated than those of a cluster of genus features. These remains could perhaps represent a link between the Sisis and the Vitus in a geological phase between the Paliocene and the EOSING six eighty five to fifty five million years ago, during which the continents were still connected, but had just begun the process of continental drift, which would lead in the tertiary era to the current continental situation. This would have allowed the coexistence in Europe of American and Eurasian varieties that remain throughout the palogene with the exchange of plant and animal forms between Europe and North America, which was possible, thanks to the presence of a continental mass in the area currently occupied by the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean to confirm the common origin of American and European vines recent research on the phyl energy of the genus Fritus suggests that the center of origin for the genus was in the new world. This would suggest that the species migrated to Eurasia during the late Yochin about forty million years ago. It is hypothesized that the land bridges of north of the North Atlantic were the most plausible route for migration from North America to Eurasia, thus overturning the hypothesis previously formulated that suggested the spread of the GenesVites went in the opposite direction. With the end of the last glaciation and the emergence of climatic conditions similar to the current ones with four distinct seasons, the genus Fritus was common to both Europe and America, and the only climatic changes of the late Miocene and Pliocene caused the fragmentation and isolation of the diverse populations. In fact, fossil remains in Poland, Denmark and Great Britain testify to the existence of grapevines in the quaternary period in Northern Europe during times that were presumably characterized by mild winters and high summer temperatures. In the final phases of the tertiary area, the earth cooled cyclically, and during the last glaciation, in particular, the risk glaciation and the worm glaciation, almost all the Northern species of vine disappeared. In Europe, only one species remained Vitesserinifera, while the North America and this Asia the glacial survivors were more numerous. The earliest vines similar to the European vine that we know today emerged in the pliocene and during the glacial pulsations, the area of origin was fragmented into two glacial rifugia, one Mediterranean and the other Caucasian. During the quaternary glaciation, European vine populations were probably isolated in southern rifugia in Iberian Peninsula in Italy and in the caucus. The distribution of these populations and the modern biogeographic evidence confirmed by the DNA analysis suggests a subsequent re colonization during more recent ice ages. Okay. Great. This is all chapter seven? That was chapter seven. Yeah. Okay. So is this kind of the length of each chapter, more or less? Or Yes. It's still missing a bit. Right? You said you chopped it up and to beginning and the end and then it's kinda missing the middle? Yeah. That's a a slightly abridged version. Just taking out some of the the heavier references and footnotes, but that is more or less. Okay. So, I mean, the purpose of our reading episodes installments is so that we can get some feedback from our audience. What would you like to ask them to do? Well, yeah, just to to reach out, either by email or through our social media channels and just let us know what what they think about the the content and subject matter of this book if there's anything, that they're enjoying about it, if there's anything that they think we can do to improve that an order even if it's just something that they have, any interest then? Yes. We just want to make sure that we get the best in the best possible, format and language for the readers at large. Right? Yeah. Exactly. I mean, we're conscious that it's quite a a technical technical topic. So we we we keen to understand from our audience if we've we've pitched this at the right level of technical expertise or whether we need to to simplify that further or Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Here we go then. It's a wrap. This was another reading of special editions of, everybody needs a bit of Shenza with Richard Halff, who has translated Atilio Shinto's very, very dense language into something a little bit more decipherable and also, he's at the editing process. So we're this is an outreach series where we would like to get some feedback from our audience. Please write directly to us. I believe info at Italianwinepodcast dot com and just put on the subject attention Richard. Okay. And then that'll get to him in some way. So that's it for now. Don't forget to follow us on mama jumbo shrimp. You know, we have a new video channel, which accompanies Italian wine podcast. It's called mama jumbo shrimp. That's right. You heard it. Right? Mama. Jumbo shrimp. We also have a TikTok channel, Pinterest, and Italian wine podcast, Instagram, mama jumbo shrimp, Instagram. We're all over the social media. So please get in touch with us and, subscribe if you can. Okay, then. Thank you again. Charaghatzi and see you next time. Chad. Goodbye. Thank you. Okay. Goodbye. Listen to the Italian wine podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, email ifm, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italianline podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, and publication costs. Until next time. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, 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 bring you free content every day. 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