Researchers Seek to Develop Pest-Resistant Wine Grapes ($33 billion industry at stake)

the Sacramento Bee ^ | 04/06/22

[Truth666]

The future of California's $33 billion wine industry might hang on an unlikely marriage of grape vines performed at the University of California, Davis. Each spring, UC Davis grape breeders Alan Tenscher and Andrew Walker plant more than 2,000 exotic young vines in the hope that one or two will emerge with fully flavored grapes and a high degree of resistance to plant-killing Pierce's disease. His work is part of a five-year, $166 million push to control Pierce's disease and the glassy-winged sharpshooter that carries it an effort that stretches from Davis vineyards to a bug-breeding colony near Bakersfield.

[Truth666]

drink for ... thought.

[blanknoone]

People have been trying to hybridize the European Grapes flavor onto American grape characteristics for more than 100 years. It has not yet yielded a vine that can really compete toe to toe in the wine world.

If this works, it will genetic engineering, not hybridizing that does it.

[Truth666]

June 11, 2004 : Sap-sucking bugs that spread a disease lethal to grapevines have been found in Vacaville, striking fear into the heart of California's premium wine-producing region in nearby Napa Valley.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/11/SHARPSHOOTERS.TMP

[Caipirabob]

If this works, it will genetic engineering, not hybridizing that does it.

This should be interesting. After it happens, then watch the French complain about "Franken-wine"...

[Truth666]

-- October 2002 Where did this new army come from?
Most believe the glassy-winged sharpshooter was accidentally introduced to Southern California as eggs on nursery stock. It was first noted in Ventura County in 1990. The growing region of Temecula, in northern San Diego county, noticed a problem back in 1996. By 1997, the damage was spreading like wildfire, and by August of 2000, between $12 and $14 billion of Temecula grapevines had been wiped out.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter has also been spotted in Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Orange, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Kern and Tulare Counties, making its way into California's Central Valley. There is no reason to believe it won't eventually start showing up in the more vineyard-laden Northern California counties of Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino.
http://www.goosecross.com/corner/sharpshooter.html

[blanknoone]

"Franken-wine"...

Oh, we can fix that the same way we fixed it around 1900...ship our disease over there. :) The french 'authorities' are still trying to get rid of the American hybrids. And everything else is planted on American root stocks. :)

[xzins]

This will surprise some, but I like the American grapes better with one exception.

The Niagara, Catawba, and Concord yield the most fruity, distinctly mild flavors of any grapes that I know with the exception of the German "Bacchus" grape. (It is definitely one of my favorites, but it is extremely difficult and expensive to find in wine shops in America.)

IMHO, the best American wines using American grapes are by Meier's and by Firelands.

Anyone who hasn't tried them really should. They are the return of the Great Lakes wine industry that was killed by Prohibition.

[blanknoone]

It is obviously a matter of taste and preference, and to each his or her own. For table grapes, many prefer American grapes.

For wine, it is a different story. Some hybrids are OK, some are good, but none really shine the way some European grapes do. There is no hybrid that can rival a cabernet or chardonnay for popularity among the world's wine drinkers. It may find a niche market among those familiar with it, but they cannot stand up to head to head competition for the vast majority of people.

[megatherium]

A colleague of mine where I teach does research on leaf-hoppers, including the glassy-winged sharpshooter. Interesting insects. He told me that one-third of the US corn crop was destroyed in the late 1960s by one species of them. They are close relatives of the cicada. Like the cicada, they call to attract mates, but unlike the cicada, they transmit their calls through plant stems instead of through the air. My colleague uses a special laser device to detect and amplify their sounds (the device is similar to what spies use to listen to conversations behind windows in foreign embassies). The calls are complex and eerie.

[xzins]

You are correct. Taste and preference are such variable things.

Even with European grapes, though, I prefer those of the Mosel/Saar region. Nothing can come close to the Bacchus, as I said. But their other traditional offerings -- especially in the auslese and spatlese varieties -- are more to my liking. Rieslings, Sheurebe, Müller-Thurgau, Kerner.

I was surprised when I came home after my 2nd tour in Germany and decided that I like the American's better. But, then again, I do like wine fruitier and sweeter.