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| The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Christy Campbell
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $3.12
You Save: $11.83 (79%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 247985
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 344
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 1565125282
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9781565125285
ASIN: 1565125282
Publication Date: March 24, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
In the mid-1860s, after countless centuries of bearing the fruit that would become wine, French grapevines began to wither and die in ever increasing numbers and no one knew why. It started in southeastern France, in the Rhone Valley, as Christy Campbell tells the tale in his masterful The Botanist and the Vintner. Within 30 years the inexorable rolling disaster that was the phylloxera infestation had reached into every nook and cranny of France's wine making regions, destroying nearly all. Everywhere the wine grape grew--England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe, and even Australia--phylloxera appeared and took no prisoners. Except for American grape vines. The little bug didn't seem to have much taste for the skunky wines of native American grapes. Christy Campbell, British journalist and, if The Botanist and the Vintner is any example, master storyteller, waltzes the reader into the middle of a fascinating tale of discovery and combat and never stops dancing. The book reads like a detective novel, a page-turner you can't put down. And it's about a bug, phylloxera, a root-sucking aphid that absolutely wiped clean the grand vineyards of France and thrived in defiance of both peasant remedy and all that "modern" science could bring to bear. The modern science of the time, mind you, included debating Darwin's new theory of evolution. So it's really at the beginning of discovery and scientific technique. Despite a French government prize of 300,000 gold francs for a remedy, it took 30 years and more to pinpoint the reason for the vineyard die-off, and a practical way of defeating the organism. Grafting onto American rootstock a rootstock that was the initial cause of the disaster won the day though not the reward. Campbell both begins and ends his tale in California's Napa Valley, where phylloxera once again raised its nasty little head toward the end of the 20th century, about 100 years after the struggle in France. It cost millions of dollars to bring the bug to bear. But this time part of the solution turned in a transgenic direction which is, of course, a threat with a completely different vintage. --Schuyler Ingle
Product Description
In the mid-1860s, grapevines in southeastern France inexplicably began to wither and die. Jules-Emile Planchon, a botanist from Montpellier, was sent to investigate. He discovered that the vine roots were covered in microscopic yellow insects. What they were and where they had come from was a mystery. The infestation advanced with the relentlessness of an invading army and within a few years had spread across Europe, from Portugal to the Crimea. The wine industry was on the brink of disaster. The French government offered a prize of three hundred thousand gold francs for a remedy. Planchon believed he had the answer and set out to prove it.
Gripping and intoxicating, The Botanist and the Vintner brings to life one of the most significant, though little-known, events in the history of wine.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
A threat to all wine December 21, 2007
For 20 years in the mid-1800s phylloxera threatened the wine industry in Europe
Many botanists, entomologists and vintners played a role in identifying the phylloxera, studying its life cycle and devising a means to defeat it. Although he doesn't get much credit in this book, T. V. Munson in the US was crucial in identifying louse resistant vines. Planchon, a professor at the prestigious Montpellier School of Pharmacy, gets credit for identifying the phylloxera aphid as the cause and for tracing its origins to the States.
The book is wonderful in describing Planchon's efforts to convince French growers and scientists that the louse was responsible. It also is wonderful at tracing the differing responses of wine regions as they became infest with the louse.
The French government offered a large cash prize for a solution to the problem; "solutions" included exorcism, mesmerism, "electrical commotions", marching bands, and a marvelous "beating wheelbarrow," with hammers that would pound the soil. Serious consideration was given to an even more absurd solution: make wine from American grapes. The country-life correspondent for Le Temps, after attending a half-dozen tastings of American wines, reported that "not one of those who took part had the courage to empty his glass."
Nonetheless, by grafting French vines on American roots, the louse was defeated. Despite my carping about how Munson is portrayed, this is an excellent wine history.
Robert C. Ross 2008
you don't have to be an enologist August 20, 2007
How refreshing to read a book about wine history that is not totally layperson, but not textbooky. Fascinating read about the history of the relationship between European and American vines and indeed, how wine was saved for the world. Anyone interested at all in wine should read this book.
 Phylloxera and The Botanist and the Vintner May 7, 2007
This is a great book. Just be aware that its title in the rest of the world is "Phylloxera" - when you purchase a book from a "rest of the world" publisher, Amazon has a bad habit of recommending the same book under its US title.
 Interesting story - poorly conveyed. March 30, 2007
This is an extremely interesting biological and viticultural story. Unfortunately the history is poorly and haphazardly organized. Although Campbell strives to make the characters (scientists, viticulturists, and bureaucrats)three dimensional - his insistence on chronologically following the activities of multiple individuals comes at a high cost of understanding. The story would have been better told - I feel - by focusing on fewer players or including a more organized interspersion of biological context.
A plague on both your louses November 28, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Every wine-lover has at least a passing acquaintance
with the story of phylloxera, the tiny vine louse that
threatened the very existence of European vitis vinifera
grapes and the industry that's built on them.
Briefly, in the 1860's, vines imported from America as
horticultural curiosities brought with them an
unfestation of phylloxera to which the European vines
had no immunity. Phylloxera destroyed the roots of grape
vines and eventually the vines themselves died.
This is the story of the devastation of almost all
the vineyards of Europe that resulted from the louse.
More interestingly, it's also the story of:
* the scientific world coming to terms with the
implications of Darwinian theory and the consequences
of the scientific method. Early attempts to control
the pest included flooding, fumigatiing,cultivating
and sulfurating the vineyards. A partial success was
eventually achieved: vulnerable European vines were
grafted on to resistant American rootstocks. The plants
that almost killed European viticulture ended up being
its salvation.
* the social and economic disruption of a peasant world
that stretched from the Loire to Tuscany and Vienna.
Vast tracts of countryside were abandoned when profitable
grape growing was no longer possible. The depopulation
of the countryside was felt in European cities as well
as in the U.S., Canada and Argentina.
* the long-term implications for the world of wine. New
strains of phylloxera adapt to newly planted rootstocks
and a cycle of plague continues. Genetic modification
seems to be just around the corner. How will the French,
sternly against GM organisms respond to the next round
of threat. Will the struggle be not just social and
scientific, but also moral?
Stay tuned.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005
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