The Horrible March of the Wine Aphid... Phylloxera

The Great French Wine Blight. Are we at risk of the modern version?


"THE PHYLLOXERA, A TRUE GOURMET, FINDS OUT THE BEST VINEYARDS AND ATTACHES ITSELF TO THE BEST WINES." Cartoon from Punch, September 6, 1890, by Edward Linley Sambourne (January 4, 1844–August 3, 1910).

When looking at the current problems facing the wine industry there is a secret risk that could destroy the most valuable asset we have, old vines on their own roots. By historical accident the old vineyards in McLaren Vale, the Barossa, the Clare and Eden Valleys and Coonawarra have become the great survivors.

These old vines have helped these wine regions continues to produce wines that are some of the best in the world. Wine producers like Wendouree, Henschke, Teusner, Kay Brothers and grape growers like Vince De Lisio to name a few are guardians of priceless old vines. However these vines are now threatened. With the push for wine tourism, and wider travel comes the risk of an economic crash that will change our regions forever.

The risk comes from a little aphid that only lives on the roots of grapevines.

The threat has always been with us (the Phylloxera aphid arrived in Australia circa 1877) but since it remained, against the odds, confined to the North Eastern Victoria and Nagambie areas for so long, it has dropped off many wine growers radars. Maybe it's the recent increase in plantings which has reduced the distance between vineyards, or maybe people became too casual with the protocols after getting away with living with the threat for so long but something has changed and Phylloxera has now quickly become a more immediate threat to all own rooted vineyards in Australia.

Phylloxera represents a clear and present danger to Australian vineyards now. For how serious this could be we only need to look back to histroy to show us how.

Phylloxera was thought to have arrived into Europe sometime around 1858, or 1860. It was introduced from North America. It can hardly be seen with the naked eye. There had been trade in grape stock between the two continents for over two hundred years previous, but no one had notice the grape aphid.

It is likely Phylloxera only became a problem in France after the invention of steamships. This new technology allowed a fast journey across the Atlantic ocean, allowing the Phylloxera to survive the trip. An increase in fast travel and between the continents made its introduction inevitable.

The French initially did not know what Phylloxera was doing to there vines, they just saw the effect, a sudden vine death which they likened to consumption. In 1863 the first cases had turned up in the old region of Languedoc.

They called it wine blight. This wine blight caused the entire course of French industry to change and is estimated to have cost double the repatriations the French had to supply Prussia after their losing war of 1870.

For many this might seem like an ancient history lesson, irrelevant with the pressures of a recession and environmental concerns like droughts and fires, but the parallels between the past and present seem obvious to me.

I am scared of a repeat.

South Australia now faces the imminent arrive of the blight. With the an increase in travel and tourism between our wine regions being encouraged, the chances of Phylloxera continuing to break out of its containment in Victoria increases directly with every air flight or road trip between the two states.

As financial pressure is put on wine businesses corners will be cut. Vineyard hygiene will be cut back where grape growers and wineries find the cut the costs of maintaining vineyard cleanliness. This short term financial distraction could let a lond term destruction slip through into South Australia.

An introduction of the aphid would cause a modern upset that would could rival the original for economic catastrophe. The original outbreak saw 40% of French vineyards devastated over a 15 year period, from the late 1850s to the mid 1870s. The French economy was badly hit by the blight; many businesses were lost, and wages in the wine industry were cut to less than half. Farmers were ruined.

Waves of immigrants moved to California and Algiers to start anew.

Remember that the rapid spread of the pest was in an era where the only fast travel between wine regions was by train, or river barge. It is notable that the spread of Phylloxera initially followed the main river valley of the Rhone from Languedoc to the centre of France.

Ironically in Tuscany the railways were blamed for the scourge. They called the railway a devils tool and thought it unnatural because it laid long tracks of iron into the soil. The Tuscan grape growers ripped up several miles of track in fear.

After a start in the Rhone Valley, the disease spread across the French Alps and across the Pyrenees. Bordeaux was also breached and by 1884 over a million hectares of French vineyards were dead or dying. As the plague spread, church bells were rung in alarm, anti-pest syndicates were formed, and a burn-or-perish approach was regretfully adopted.

It was not until 1868 that the French biologist Jules- Emile Planchon and two colleagues, chanced upon a group of Phylloxera sucking from the roots of a plant that a theory on the blight's cause by the Phylloxera was formed.

Once the cause of the problem was discovered, there was no apparent solution. A large cash prize was offered for a cure and many off-the-wall ideas were tested, but the prize was never awarded.

Removing and burning infested vines was only marginally effective in slowing the spread.

The only option to keep the wine industry going was suggested by two french wine growers, Leo Laliman and Gaston Bazille, who both felt if European vines could be combined, by means of grafting, with the phylloxera-resistant American vines, then the problem might be solved.

The process was colloquially termed "reconstitution" by French wine growers.

If Phylloxera came to McLaren Vale today, this remains the only solution. Our vineyards would have to be pulled up and replanted as grafted vines. Classic vineyards like Hill of Grace in the Eden Valley would have to be reconstituted because they will die from phylloxera eating the vines roots.

A more recent lesson in the destructive abilities of Phylloxera is occurring now. Attempts in the 1960s by the viticulturists of the University of California to replace older rootstocks with the ominously named AxR1 rootstock. AxR1 performed wonderfully for a while, but a new strain of Phylloxera overcame its resistance. California experienced its own rapid outbreak, only now satellite and DNA technology was available to track the spread of infection, and Californian vineyards are now in the process of replanting at an estimated cost of between half a billion and a billion dollars.

While we do have the advantage, in modern times, in that we now know what causes the death of vines and how Phylloxera can be detected. This knowledge is not widely known.

How much of the Phylloxera story is known by those who we are encouraging to travel in our wine districts? Does the staff on your friendly budget airline warn you of the dangers of traveling from the Yarra Valley to Adelaide? Nothing is said. Fruitfly; yes... Phylloxera; no.

Unless a widespread campaign is conducted we could face our own blight. South Australia's hundred year old vineyards could be chewed up like their French forebares. The campaign needs to target externally the tourists we are attracting and internally the wine industry itself. Phylloxera needs to be taken seriously, now, before it is too late.

It would be introduced accidentally by a tourists boot or a dirty tractor tire. It would take a few years to be noticed. We might have an advanced technology like satellite imagary to track its progress, but we would stand little better chance than out 19th Century compatriots of stopping a huge economic upheaval to an already stressed industry.

An increase in wine tourism could save our wine regions from the tough economic times it now faces. However, like the steamships of old, the airflights and tour buses could also bring with them a pest that can't be shaken - a ruinous aphid to claim the oldest remaining vines in the world.