When visiting the Loire Valley, France, this May, I noticed three cloth bags in their cellar with soil and twigs stricking out, so of course I had to ask what they were.  To my delight, they were chenin blanc grape vine cuttings which had been grafted onto American root stock.  I knew about this but this is the first time I'd seen them.

The purpose of grafting is because in the late 1800s a louse called phylloxera threatened the devastation of the European wine grape (vitis vinifera), which forms the basis of the majority of wines produced around the world. 

 The phylloxera louse infects the root with a poisonous secretion that prevents it from healing.  These microscopic, pale yellow, sap-sucking insects, related to aphids, feed on the roots and leaves of grapevines, gradually cutting off the flow of nutrients and water to the vine.

After a significant amount of research was devoted to finding a solution, they discovered one way was to graft cuttings of the vitis vinifera vines onto resistant native American species root stock.  Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no vitis vinifera wine industry in Europe.

Marie Griffin, ABC Wine Supervisor North/West Florida

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