Do You Know Who’s in Your Family Tree?

When I say “family tree” I am not really referring to your more...interesting (?) distant, or not so distant, relatives. We all know about them! No, what family I am talking about here is the family of the grape; or grapes, actually, as there is more than one family of grapes.

People who make a living from studying vines are called ampelographers, or people who study vines. Vines are climbing plants and what distinguishes them from trees, even old, gnarly vines, is the fact that vines need support to grow. Trees have trunks; vines do not. Grape vines belong to a very large family of climbing plants; included in this large family of climbing plant is Boston ivy. Grapes belong to a genus in this large family; the grape branch of the family tree is known as Vitis.

Within this genus of grapes, there are several species, the most important for wine making being vitis vinifera. Further down the family tree we have individual varieties. These include about one thousand different varieties including cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, airen, pinot gris, pinot noir, sangiovese and all its clones, etc. Other species of grapes include those native to North America and Asia, none of which, with the possible exception of the Norton, produces wine that is of sufficient quality in taste and aroma to appeal to more than a local audience.

Once we get past the variety, we arrive at the clone level. There are different clones for most grape varieties. These clones are sometimes naturally occurring mutations and sometimes the result of growers working to isolate a set of particular characteristics to develop a clone of a variety that will do well in a certain climate or soil. Clones may exist, or be developed for low rainfall, intense sunshine, arid conditions, and so on.

The vine also has a root or rootstock. This is the part of the vine below the surface. After phylloxera devastated Europe in the 1800’s, vinifera scions, vine tops, were cloned on to American or New World, rootstocks as these rootstocks were already resistant to the mite. The critter was originally from North America. The American vines and phylloxera evolved together. Vitis vinifera had never seen one and had no resistance to its predation.

This was not as simple as it sounds. For a given location a suitable rootstock was needed. Not all rootstocks do well in all kinds of soil. So researchers had to find out what scions, tops, did well on what root stocks. They then needed to find out what soil types were best suited for these rootstocks.

While it is true that wine, or a wine like beverage, can be made from almost any fruit, it is Vitis Vinifera that steals the show for quality wine production around the world.