Phylloxera, how wine was saved for the world | Christy Campbell

by Christy CampbellA historical investigation into the mysterious bug that wiped out the vineyards of Europe in the 1860s and how one young botanist, eventually saved wine for the world'. The story's hero was a young French botanist called Jules-Emile Planchon, who had served an apprenticeship at Kew Gardens under the great Sir William Hooker. It was he who eventually identified the culprit Phylloxera - after a factfinding mission to America and who provided a solution: grafting Phylloxera-free American vines onto European root-stock. To this day the French don't like to admit that by 1914, all vines cultivated in France were hybrid Americans.Christy Campbell is a writer, journalist and former defence correspondent and feature writer for the Sunday Telegraph, which he joined on the eve of the Gulf War.ED : Harper Perennial (2004), 12x19 cm, 315 pages, paperback.