The Essential Book of Fermentation by Jeff Cox

Author:Jeff Cox [Cox, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

If there are any gaps in the protection afforded by natural beneficial insects like green lacewings, things are helped along by the monthly release of twenty-five gallons of ladybird beetles, better known as ladybugs, during June, July, and August—that’s about five and a half million predators looking for aphids, spider mites, and other pests. Lolonis also releases praying mantises, although these indiscriminate and voracious predators will eat whatever they can grab—beneficials or pests.

One stubborn problem for organic grape growers is the ubiquitous presence of phylloxera—a form of plant louse that eats away the roots of Vitis vinifera, eventually killing the vines. The world’s fine wine grapes are all cultivated varieties of Vitis vinifera, a botanical name that means “wine-producing grape,” and whose ancestral home is variously placed in the mild climate zones of the Caucasus and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia or thereabouts. It’s thought that during the great Indo-European migration that took place after the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, tribes from the Caucasus carried their vines westward as they moved into the Mediterranean area. Evidence of winemaking in the Near East goes back eight thousand years. The Greeks took their vines to Italy about 1000 BC, and shortly thereafter, vine culture reached France and Spain. Through more than a hundred generations, people have been selecting exceptionally flavorful varieties of Vitis vinifera, and today’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and hundreds of other varieties are all types of this wild vine that still grows in the fields and forests of the Caucasus Mountains. Researchers have made wine from the wild, ancestral Vitis vinifera, and it reportedly makes a coarse but pleasant wine, one that would be infinitely pleasurable to ancient nomads who had no other wine to drink.

Because phylloxera is native to North America, however, wild North American grapes have evolved resistance to this pest. Their defense is a thick, corky bark that covers their roots, through which the root louse can’t penetrate. Almost all the Vitis vinifera planted in the United States and Europe is now grafted to phylloxera-resistant native American grape rootstock. A question naturally arises about phylloxera and Lolonis’s vineyards. How is it that just about every vineyard in the Napa Valley and many in Sonoma County had to be replanted in the 1990s because of outbreaks of the phylloxera root louse, and yet Lolonis’s seventy-plus-year-old vineyards have not? One reason is that when California viticulture exploded in the late 1960s through the 1980s (actually, it’s still expanding rapidly), many growers planted vines grafted to a rootstock called AxR, which was recommended by the University of California at Davis, the nation’s premier school for viticulture and winemaking. Unfortunately, AxR is not resistant to phylloxera (putting a nice dollop of egg on the face of UC Davis), which caused untold woe and expense when beautiful vineyards just entering their prime years showed decline and had to be ripped out. The old Lolonis vines may have been planted on an older rootstock called St.

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