The Future of Wine: We Need New Breeds of Grape
Grapes on the Vine in Mendocino, Calif. Hot Ash via Wikimedia When news broke last week that archaeologist had unearthed a 6,000-year-old winemaking operation in an Armenian cave, many took it as occasion to pat ourselves on the backs-after all, it's proof that early humans were more civilized than previously thought, evolved creatures that we are. Unfortunately, in the intervening years our grapes haven't evolved much at all, leaving our winemaking varieties-most of which have been developed from a single species-extremely susceptible to disease and pathogens. The wine produced in that Armenian cave was different than the sauv blancs, pinot noirs, and merlots on offer at the bottle shop today, but the grapes domesticated 5,000 years ago in what is now Turkey weren't so different than the ones found on vineyards across the globe today. Most wines, ranging from the fruity red merlots of California to the sweet white Rieslings of...