D2D Concepts: What is Vitis Vinifera?

What is Vitis vinifera? The simple answer is: the European wine grape.

Almost every grape you’ve ever heard of is Vitis vinifera - Pinot, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Riesling, all of it. Basically the only really famous grape that isn’t Vitis vinifera is the Concord grape - and we’ll get to that one when we talk about American heritage grapes.

Let’s take a look at the genus first. The grape family, Vitis, is one of the oldest flowering species on earth, originating at least 140 million years ago. How do we get that number? It’s because there are closely related species on either side of the Atlantic, meaning they must have a common ancestor that lived before the continents drifted apart.

Modern Vitis vinifera emerged in the high valleys of the Caucasus Mountains - now the countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan - between 8 and 10 thousand years ago. Rather than foraging wild fruit, farmers here began selecting the biggest and juiciest specimens they could find, and experimenting with planting sites. The oldest winery we’ve ever found is in a cave in Armenia, which dates back to 6000BC.

Winemaking spread first from the Caucasus to Persia, Mesopotamia, and most importantly, Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were the first to create a thriving overseas wine trade throughout the southern Mediterranean. They passed the baton along to the Greeks, who planted wine everywhere they went in the northern Mediterranean. Then, the Romans stretched winemaking to the limits of Europe’s viticultural possibilities, as far as the Rhine River and even southern England. Finally, the conversion of most of Europe to Christianity solidified wine’s place as not just a coveted luxury good, but also a social necessity.

There are thousands of varieties out there of the single species Vitis vinifera. Let’s take Pinot Noir as an example to see how there came to be so many. First, our Pinot Noir might cross-pollinate with another variety, the way you imagine most flowers. For example, by crossing Pinot Noir with this Gouais Blanc, we get Chardonnay.

Second, Vitis vinifera is able to pollinate itself with its so-called perfect flowers, meaning it has both male and female organs. When it self-pollinates, the genome is rather unstable, which results in a high probability of mutations. This is how Pinot Noir might mutate into Pinot Gris or Pinot Blanc.

Third, you can grow a new vine from a cutting of an old one, which will guarantee a genetically identical plant - these are called clones. A commercial variety like Pinot Noir may have several famous clones that you can get from the right nursery. Taken together, everything under the Vitis vinifera umbrella accounts for about 98% of global wine production.