It is well known that lots of species from large cattle to tiniest bacteria that were brought by the European colonists to new worlds made huge damage to local life forms. The history of wine also has such case, but in its case the problem came from the new world and destruction was laid to one of the best winemaking region in the old world – France, it is called The Great French Wine Blight.
The blight was caused by a North American insect the grape phylloxera. It is a small aphid that lands of the vine injects its feeding tube into it and feeds from the grapevine, seems like a common parasite, but after the feeding process it leaves a small dose of venom inside the vine. As soon as the venom reaches the roots it kills the plant. Initially this insect existed only in North America and therefore some of the local grapevines were resistant to it. Around 1860 it was brought to Europe on an American vine and this was the beginning of the blight.
The main problem at that time was the little knowledge of biology, which eventually led to these horrible events. Initially phylloxera attacked the first vineyards in Florida in 16th century, but the settlers thought that vines died because they were not adapted to local soil and choose to work with American grapevines instead (which were resistant to the parasite). Around the mid 19th century steam boats replaced most of the traditional ships and travel across the ocean started taking less time. This was the main factor which allowed the phylloxera to reach Europe alive, presumably on a vine from the US and land in France.
French winemaker at first also were not viewing the insect as the source of the problem, even when noticed the phylloxera was classified as one of the consequences of the mysterious disease, but not as the cause of it. The farmers were just unable to tie the insect to the disease, because plants were dying after phylloxera left them and not during the feeding process. First cases occurred in 1863 and by the mid 1870th 40% of French vineyards were destroyed by the insect. The aphid was tied to the disease only in 1868 and two years later and American entomologist Charles Valentine Riley confirmed this. Nevertheless there was still no way to fight the insect; the only solution was to combine European vines with American vines resistant to the venom. Eventually this proved to be efficient and allowed to replant all the damaged vineyards with new protected grapes.
The blight had a huge impact not just in France, but also spread worldwide and heavily damaged the wine industry in other countries. For example in the US the outbreak was followed by Prohibition, which eventually devastated the countries industry for the next few decades. Today there is still no way to fight phylloxera, but wineries developed their own strategy. Some of them use the outbreaks to renew their vineyards and plant new types of grapes as soon as the old die out.
