Dr. Tim Martinson, senior extension associate and Dr. Bruce Reisch, professor, Horticulture Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University, in Geneva, N.Y. wrote in Wines & Vines, “ Changing attitudes in the European Union Environmental, health and cost concerns are leading producers to reconsider hybrids .”
The wine grapevine genus is named Vitis, under which are several separate species. The dominant table wine grape species is Vitis vinifera (commonly called a European species but with origins traced farther East). North America is home to several different wine grape species. When one or more grape varieties within the same species are crossed a new grape variety is born. Crossing one or more vines from one or more separate species, however, creates an interspecific hybrid grapevine and grape variety.
Cultivated wine grapes require intensive agricultural protection in the form of sprays largely to control insects and mildews. In so-called conventional growing (as opposed to organic) spraying often includes petrochemicals. A European Union commission once estimated that vineyard spraying represented 40% of crop protection in all of European agriculture. In 2008, the French government’s “EcoPhyto” plan established a goal to reduce pesticide use 50% by 2018. The government did this because of incidences of suspected pesticide illnesses in agricultural communities and because of the increased cost of spraying throughout a growing cycle thanks in part to major climate shifts that increae disease stress.
The overarching reason for creating hybrids is to develop hardier grapevines to withstand weather conditions and diseases, or both, without giving up wine quality. Still, no matter how many different hybrids that have been developed over more than 100 years, they have not always performed as expected. Therefore, under suspicion, hybrids had not been allowed in most appellation controls across the European continent.
Climate and disease prove formidable foes to Vitis vinifera vines in many U.S. appellations . For that reason early American wines (nineteenth century) were produced from several separate grapevine species native to the North American continent. Hybrid varieties with names like Seyval, Vidal, Chambourcin, Baco noir were put into wider use in the Northeast and Midwest in the mid twentieth century, and hybrid development continues in this century, especially at Cornell University.
Things may be changing for the fortunes of hybrids in Europe. In 2009, the European Union relaxed its appellation regulations; in May 2016 France produced an official grape variety catalog that allowed experimental use for “distinct, uniform and stable” hybrids; in 2017 the French National Research Institute (INRA) released four new disease-resistant varieties: two reds (Artaban and Vidoc) and two whites (Floreal and Voltis). The four new varieties include genes resistant to powdery mildew and downy mildew. INRA recommends fungicides on these four varieties can be applied two to three times per year as opposed to the 10—15 sprays recommended for, say, Chardonnay.
Martinson and Reisch like it that about 350 producers from 17 European and North American countries have organized for the “dissemination of fungus-resistant grape varieties.” They point to the experimental variety Cabernet blanc at Domaine La Colombette in Languedoc and the experimental hybrid wines of Vignobles Ducourt in Bordeaux.
The authors admit “These efforts represent the proverbial drop in the bucket, at least in Western Europe, where an estimated 31,400 hectares (77,590 acres) out of 2.7 million total hectares (6.67 million acres) are planted to hybrids, which is a little more than 1%.” They estimate that in Eastern Europe about 225,000 hectares (almost 600,000 acres) are planted. Hybrids account for almost 22% of total production in Bulgaria and 47% in Romania.
Hybrid wines still come with stigma, but Martinson and Reisch say, “The distinction between hybrid and vinifera is becoming less and less useful…current programs are using elite cultivars with excellent wine quality…Newer varieties are becoming more and more vinifera-like." They point to Regent, an interspecific hybrid from Diana (vinifera) and Chambourcin (hybrid) that has been approved for the German classification, Qualitätswein.
According to the two professors, “Hybrids, scorned in Europe since the 1950s, may again see increasing acceptance as consumers realize the environmental benefits and higher wine quality that the new disease-resistant hybrid varieties offer.”
Hear, hear, and maybe the decreased cost of growing hybrids will show up in the retail price of wine.