Any of WLDG readers who are also paid-up ‘Purple Pagers’ on http://www.jancisrobinson.com may have read some of this already.
On the 8th December I attended the first general meeting of the new Centre d’Ampélographie Alpine Pierre Galet (the Pierre Galet Centre for Alpine Ampelography) in Cevins, Savoie, France. It is so-named because the eminent octogenarian ampelographer Professor Pierre Galet has chosen to donate his vast archive of research documents to this newly created centre, based at Cevins. Why? Simply because he could find no-one else willing to preserve them, least of all in Montpellier where Galet has worked and lived for many years, and where one might have thought his research papers would have been most valued. The main objective of the centre is to participate in the protection of the local terroir and environment through preserving the ancient grape varieties of the Alpine areas.
At the meeting, ampelographer Dr José Vouillamoz of the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland revealed results of recent DNA research which prove a link between the grape varieties of Savoie and those of the northern Rhône Valley. Vouillamoz, an expert on Alpine varieties, was discussing the origins of unusual Savoie varieties and focussed in particular on the best know red variety, Mondeuse Noire. The origins of Mondeuse used to be linked with that of North-east Italy’s Refosco, but this was refuted some years ago. The next breakthrough came when a team at the UC Davis together with INRA in Montpellier, France proved that the parents of Syrah were two rare grape varieties, Savoie’s Mondeuse Blanche and Dureza from the Ardèche region. What was still unproven was a definite link between Mondeuse Blanche and Mondeuse Rouge.
In research which is to be officially published in a paper in 2008, Vouillamoz has now proved that Mondeuse Noire is either an offspring or a parent of Mondeuse Blanche, exactly which being impossible to now determine. This in turn means that Mondeuse Rouge is either half-sibling to Syrah or grand-parent to Syrah. A similar relationship exists between Mondeuse Blanche and the northern Rhône’s Viognier, meaning that Viognier is also related to Syrah. The news confirms this part of eastern France as being one of the world’s most important sources of vine genetic material.
As an important aside to this, I found it a real honour and delight to meet Pierre Galet (aged 86) who also spoke at the meeting and was happy to chat to all the vignerons and others preset at the meeting. He keeps himself up-to-date too, and as a true scientist is not at all worried that modern techniques have made some of his original assertions about grape origins untrue. Before the meeting, I took over his last book, published in 2000, an encyclopaedia of grape varieties in French, to be autographed and introduced myself to him. “Ah”, he said, “I’m half English and in the 1950s I went to England to advise on which grapes to plant for the first modern commercial vineyard”. After further chat, I asked him if he still enjoyed drinking wine. “Yes, at every meal, which means in a year I drink 365 bottles, 366 in leap years”.