rfmcdonald | [LINK] On recovering unique grape variants and developing their wines (Reply)

Andrea Vogt at The Telegraph wrote an interesting article syndicated to the National Post about the efforts of scientists to preserve endangered grape populations.

High on a windswept hillside on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria, vineyard workers are carefully harvesting a variety of Zibibbo grapes from vines at risk of extinction.

Also known as Muscat of Alexandria, because it is thought to have originated in the Egyptian city, the grape is used to make Passito wines, some of Italy’s most prized dessert wines.

For the past five years, scientists have been searching remote outposts across the Mediterranean basin for endangered strains of this ancient vine, carefully removing vines from overgrown estates and remote mountain tops in Spain, Italy, Greece and France and cultivating them on test plots on Pantelleria.

This month, the first fruits of their labour are being harvested from 2,117 vines scattered across the remote volcanic island, where the grape cultivation techniques used to produce Passito were inscribed last year on Unesco’s world heritage list.

“These biotypes are at risk of disappearing across the Mediterranean, but we believe that with careful cultivation, their genetic patrimony can help us enhance existing and new Zibibbo wines,” said the project’s lead scientist Attilo Scienza, professor of viticulture at the University of Milan.