Ep. 452 Sangiovese Lambrusco... | Phylloxera Part 2

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. My name is Joy Living in. And for the next several weeks, I will be bringing you some choice narrated content from the book San Jose, Lambrusco, and other vine stories written by mister Science himself, Professor Atigio Shenza, and Serena Eimacio. Published by positive press dot net. To get a copy of the book, the kindle version is available on Amazon and hardcover copies are available from positive press. If you like the content we share each week, consider donating to our show. Find details at italian wine podcast dot com or on our social media channels. Sit back and get your geek on as we jump into the details stories and science of Italian wines and vines. Feloxera. Part two. You break it. You buy it. At this point, what happened has become evident and finally accepted. However, the solution remains unknown. This is also because in Phylloxera's native land, this bug does not cause more than some discomfort to the plant. It does not prevent it from living or being productive. A long co evolution had taught the vine to defend itself. The beast had only caused a small intolerable discomfort. So we had imported the problem from the American continent, but apparently there was no ammunition against it. Hemp, lupine, castor oil, shramonium, Maria Eligon's, Camomile, coriander, tobacco, belladonna, brassica Rapa, Campestris, Pyithium, various euphorbias, Artimysia, saponaria, Valarian, Balsemina, garlic, These and other plants were sown under the vines because it was believed that their poisonous properties could kill evacuate or imprison the insect. Physical and mechanical remedies consisted of covering up the vines around the roots. But the cost and difficulties of this operation were too high. Then they tried covering the ground surface of the plant with pebbles, both for applying more pressure to the soil and for preventing the passage of the insect from the roots to the stem. To get the same results, it was decided to spread tar or viscous substances over the feet of the vines. But all the practices were practically abandoned as opposed to the flooding of the vineyards. In the winter period, the fields were submerged for two or three months in order to kill all the phylloxera specimens present both in the soil and on the strains. But the cost to do this was high and the presence of water did not allow the passage of man and animals between the rows of vines. Despite some success, the strategy was shelved. In the end, chemical treatments also arrived on the scene Turpentine, oil, mercurial salts, fenic acid, arsenic, and carbon sulfide were used abundantly until people realized that these measures were far more harmful on the vigneron than on the insect. From the providential and unexpected communication of Laliman, known to the French wine growing world for his passion as a collector and hated by some because he was considered responsible for the introduction of Filoxera in Europe. To the boom, wine growing Congress of eighteen sixty nine, and the creation of the first rootstocks by Kodque, Millardet, and de Gasse, in eighteen eighty one. About ten years later, there is a tumultuous chain of events in France marked by feelings of hope and discouragement, which mark the rebirth of European wine growing. In the meantime, a small group of agricultural pioneers thought to reevaluate and better understand the reasons and the origin for the resistance of American plants through techniques and research. Obviously, using American vines as an alternative source for wine production was beyond consideration. Youromas were too different, some of which were particularly unpleasant to the noses and palates of Europe. However, the idea of creating grafted plants was born A technique which put together the root part of the American vines resistant to phylloxera and the productive part of the valuable European varieties. The need to rapidly disseminate the results of the fight against phylloxera led the academics and the agricultural societies to organize very popular and animated conferences and informal meetings in various cities of Italy and France. Study trips to convince wine growers to renew their vineyards through the observation of the results achieved in the field by innovative wine growers called heroes. The participation of leading scientific figures such as Jean's Emille Planchamps, Pierre Marie Alexis Miller de gustave Fox. In these study trips, broke down the formerly insurmountable barriers between wine growers and academics. And created a climate of solidarity and brotherhood between wine growers accumulated by the serious economic damage caused by phylloxera. Another new phenomenon was making the rounds in the agricultural world in those years. The printing and distribution of publications and newspapers with very explicit titles such as La Filoxera Lienesto, LeViti, American Vines, Larivista Viti Coltura, Viticulture magazine, and so on, to cite only the Italian ones. Instruments not only of information to indicate the best choices in terms of grafting techniques or the availability of new rootstocks, but also a forum for discussion on the many perplexities that cross the minds of winemakers and the reassuring indications of researchers. It is estimated that between eighteen sixty eight and nineteen hundred, about one thousand five hundred articles and books dealing with Phylloxera were published in Europe. The role of this specialized press was also to recompose the gap that had been created between wine growers and technicians on the strategies to be adopted to combat the epidemic. In the years of uncertainty about the decisions to be taken, Two parties clashed in the fight against Veloxera. The so called Americans in favor of grafting and the sulfarists who supported the use of insecticides. Carbon sulfide and potassium sulfocarbonate. The dispute was fierce, especially in France, starting from the theories that Lucien Daniel expressed in nineteen o two on the coalescence of liquids as a result of the so called specific variations of graph divines and the consequent contamination of the European vine sap. And therefore, of the wine by American blood. History repeats itself to present day, albeit with other arguments in defense of not or biodynamic Viticulture. The worst thing, however, was that using grafted plants meant rebuilding the entire French vineyard system from scratch plowing through vineyards that were sometimes centuries old. It was only in eighteen seventy nine thanks to the efforts and the perseverance of some scholars, including Victor Priiat, that the French government recognized the creation of rootstocks as one of the three remedies along with sulfidation and flooding to combat phylloxera. Once the initial skepticism began to diminish, it was also understood that the new technology was accompanied by a series of drawbacks linked to the lack of experimental research. It became clear that some plants worked better than others, probably because in the areas of origin, the soils and climates were more akin to those in France. Improvements in scientific knowledge and the development of increasingly size and refined techniques increased the hectares in which reconstruction was carried out from eight thousand nine hundred and four in seventeen departments in eighteen eighty one to two hundred and ninety nine thousand eight hundred and one in forty four departments in eighteen ninety nine. The areas where Phylloxera had arrived first welcomed the new technique with greater enthusiasm, while sulfur and flooding remained on vogue for a long time in Burgundy and the Bordeaux area. French and European Viticulture slowly began to recover but the blow had been heavy. In cognac, it had gone from two hundred and eighty thousand heck tears planted with vines in eighteen sixty five to forty thousand in eighteen ninety three and then returned to seventy thousand in nineteen twenty eight with several of the old vineyards converted in the meantime to fallow land. Many peasants had emigrated to Algeria, Argentina, and Chile. Others moved to urban areas which required a continuous low cost workforce. Hole villages remain deserted. The grafted vines, however, were the example of a new Viticulture and the techniques that developed in France spread in agricultural schools all over the world. Thus far, we have talked about France where it all began. But how did Italy fare? In Italy, in eighteen seventy nine, many people thought that the beast was raging in France, Austria, and Switzerland, and that they would save their local vineyards thanks to the type of local farming they employed. For the most part, this entailed a more distant distribution of plants and a mixed cultivation, one that did not facilitate the movement of the insects compared to that of specialized plants that were widespread at the time in France. To complicate the phylloxera lifespan, they also created the frequent presence of channels that marked the boundaries between vineyards, physically isolating the plots of land planted with vines from each other. All this optimism however was very short lived. In eighteen seventy nine, the first Italian case of an affected vineyard was reported. To be precise in Val Madreira, not far from Lekko. Soon, it would strike Porto Mauricio, imperia, and various other places in Sicily. Sixteen years later, Phylloxera had now become present in twenty seven Italian provinces and destroyed one hundred thousand hectares with another seventy five thousand hit hard. Sicily was the region most in difficulty followed by Sardinia Calabria Tuscany, the island of Alba, liguria, Lombardy, Lekko, and Bergamo, and Piamonte in Palanza. However, phylloxera reached the lighter volcanic soils more slowly where it had difficulty moving. Taurasi and Aetna thus became the only European wine growing areas capable of producing wine in quantity. This was a very favorable situation from an economic point of view since a large part of their production was sent to France. Unfortunately, the vine growers believed that the insect would never come to them and renewed the plantings of the vineyards without the rootstock. A few years later, these would also be destroyed. It is thought that the infection came from France despite the strict prevention measures. Although it should be said that in Italy, the variety York Madeda had been grown in Lombardy for at least fifty years and Isabella had arrived in Varese immediately after the outbreak of powdery mildew just before the arrival of phylloxera. Ferginando Valardi, a botanist and agronomist in his book leviti American e La Viti Cortura Moderna nineteen o eight American vines in modern Viticulture gives a detailed account of the situation and describes how in Italy two, the first attempts to eradicate the insect mainly utilized methods like sulfur and flooding. However, he also began to realize that grafting was the only real way out. In those years, the publication of numerous volumes was not by chance which explained the characteristics of American varieties and the techniques in detail in order to graph them. However, it would take several years for the situation to get better and for the vineyard rehabilitation to move in the desired direction. The hostility towards rootstocks often made them out as new and scary. This attitude spread in Italy as it had in France. Producers not yet affected by the disease exacerbated the situation further They felt immune and did not carry out any monitoring or treatment. And above all, did not see the need to eradicate the vineyards and proceed with new plantings. The warning of the great doctor, as well as zoologist botanists and entomologist Jovan Nibatista Grasi describes what the situation must have been like at the beginning of the last century. It is not necessary to be a prophet or the children of a prophet to predict that phylloxera will not stop its march until it has destroyed the last foot of European life. Fortunately, his words did not fall on deaf ears and Italy all completed the process of reconstituting Viticulture using new grafted plants. The price paid was however higher than it should have been, not least because they did not want to take advantage of what had happened in France. The fears, anxieties, lack of trust in science, and excessive credit given to conservationists, more or less, in good faith, delayed decisions that based on the experiences of the French should have seemed necessary and inevitable. We told this story also because the economic crisis that followed the destruction by phylloxera was devastating for many people. While it is true that certain disasters cannot be avoided, It is equally important to deal with them in a timely manner. History it is said is made up of a course of action and remedies knowing the past must help us to interpret the present and make the right decisions for the future. The reconstruction of European vineyards after the attacks of phylloxera gave rise to a new phenomenon represented by the development of Viticulture in the southern regions of the continent for the production of low quality wines for consumption in large cities. This passage was favored by the creation in the second half of the nineteenth century of a railway network that succeeded in connecting the cities of the north with wine growing areas of the south. For the first time since domitian's edict of ninety two AD, Europe had to face the social as well as economic consequences of the crisis with periods of total absence of grapes. The new post phylloxera plants required a few years to be productive followed by periods of overproduction and relative devaluation of the selling price of wine triggered by the simultaneous entry into product of all the reconstructed and replanted vineyards. Add to this climatic conditions, ones that were favorable to the ripening and production of grapes. These alternations led to an increase in production of forty percent compared with the previous year, triggering a Vigneron's revolt in the south of France. The growing expand in a Viticulture in the countries of the new world contributed to the crises due to excess supply and low demand. European powers favor their own colonies. This was certainly the case with England as since it was not producing wine at home. It had a strong interest in importing wines from its colonies at a lower price than from the European suppliers. In the nineteenth century, the needs of Viticulture were met by the important technical and scientific innovations in the wine sector. The development of chemistry, microbiology, and mechanics especially thanks to French research during the first and second republics, in particular, thanks to the work of Laoisier, Shabal, and pasteur, allowed for remarkable improvements in the quality of wines. Finally, being produced without the risk that they might be afflicted by bacterial diseases that had previously significantly increased the necessity of fortified wines in European markets. All this allowed them to improve the storage capabilities and to better manage supply and demand by diluting wines on successive years without compromising the value of the productions in the particularly favorable years or in the new vineyards. Thank you for listening to this week's installment of Sanroveza, Lamrosco, and other vine stories. We hope you expanded your horizons and gave your brain cells an Italian wine workout. We'll see you again next Thursday and remember. The kindle version of the book is available on Amazon hardcover copies are available from positive press dot net. If you feel inspired to make a donation to our show, please visit us at the Italian wine podcast dot com. Find Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram. Our Twitter handle is at itaewine Podcast.