Even in France, modern varieties of grapes are finally being accepted!

 Check out this article.

In the 1800s and 1900s, France outlawed modern grapes, due to the power of the vinifera grapegrowers' lobby. (They didn't appreciate the threat that the new grapes represented to the old ways.) But modern grapes don't need to be sprayed for mildew, and they have resistance to phylloxera, and these are powerful reasons to grow them. Check out my book Modern Grapes for the Pacific Northwest, for the full story.

France and Spain moving quickly now to modern grape varieties, to minimize poisonous spraying

THIS is great news. We continue to see reason take hold over senseless attachment to the old ways. Lives of vineyard workers are at stake, not to mention the lives of billions of beneficial worms and microbes in the soil, which inorganic sprays have been killing for decades now.

When France allows modern grapes (after a century of senselessly prohibiting them), you know the tide is turning. Read my book! Modern Grapes for the Pacific Northwest (on Amazon).

Kenton

I published a book on modern grapes for the Pacific Northwest!

After researching, collecting, and testing many different grape varieties over the past 23 years, I turned all those testing notes into what I hope is a useful book for anyone considering growing grapes in the Pac Northwest. It is also useful if you want to read about farming, winemaking, and general nature-based philosophy.

You can buy the book (printed paperback or Kindle version) here.

The photo is of my own Leon Millot grapes. Thank you for checking out the book!

Why growing vinifera (the classic winegrapes) is wrong:

Check this out:

France uses noxious inorganic chemicals to kill fungal diseases in its famous vineyards. Most non-organic grapegrowers in the US do, also. These chemical sprays kill beneficial insects, worms, etc, and sterilize the soil. Such sprays should be illegal due to the harm they cause to the earth. And now, we see that they injure vineyard workers as well (and in France, many vineyard workers have to wear hazmat suits when they spray the vineyards).

We humans caused this problem: We prevented the classic winegrapes (Vitis vinifera) from evolving over the past five or six millennia. Here's what the grapes want to do: They want to make tasty grapes that are eaten by animals who then move somewhere else and poop out the seeds, which grow into slightly different "children" of the parent grape (just as human kids are different from their parents). The next generation might be better or might be worse. If it's better, then the grape is more likely to succeed. That, in short, is evolution.

But we like the taste of, say, Cab Sauv, so we take cuttings of the vine and root them and plant an identical copy of the parent somewhere else. We don't let the grape continue to evolve defenses against its predators such as fungal diseases. Meanwhile, the fungi continue to evolve, and by now the poor vinifera grapes cannot protect themselves from the fungal attack, and the grapes either die out or the fruit quality suffers.

There are at least a couple of solutions:
1. Make growers use ORGANIC sprays. These are more expensive. But the vineyard owner still has to pay for tractor fuel and labor to apply the spray.

2. Grow modern varieties of grapes (ta-da!). These are crosses of vinifera grapes with other grape species which have wonderful defenses against fungi, so good that in my vineyard in SW Washington, I never have to apply any spray and the grapes are super healthy. If the crossing is done right, you get a vinifera-like flavor that wine lovers want and expect, but you also get disease resistance, earlier ripening, and more cold tolerance. This is the "green" solution; this is the direction we should all head.

(The photo is of a Jupiter grape leafing out at Epona Vineyard in Woodland WA.)

OMG! Vineyard spraying in Champagne and Bordeaux is creating sterile deserts

This is just wrong, folks. Vinifera grapes have gotten so weak against natural funguses that they require massive spray programs. In France the sprays are so many and so deadly that vineyards have become dead zones (except for the grapes, of course).

There will be a growing backlash against this crazy practice. There is an alternative: modern grape varieties (hybrids), which are crosses of vinifera grapes with disease-resistant American grapes (we have more more native grape species than any other country, I think). In the successful crosses, you get the taste of vinifera and  the disease resistance of the American parent. Easy. All we need is for talented winemakers to keep making and marketing the new wines, and someday the worms, birds, and insects can breathe a sigh of relief.

read about it here.