Welcome to the Weekly Wine Quiz! This week, we are diving headfirst into the geek forest, wherein we shall thoroughly place our heads into the… dirt…
Standard disclaimer: based on feedback from ever-so-vocal-and-intelligent peeps like you, I supply the quiz question each week, but I do *not* supply the quiz answer immediately. YOU supply your best guess for the answer in the comments, and then tune back in later today in the comments section for the official answer. Got it? Good, let’s do this thang!
Putting Down Root(stock)s: The dreaded vine louse Phylloxera, which mostly impacts the roots of grape vines, attacked vineyards in California in the 1980s. Which of the following vine rootstocks was incorrectly thought to have been immune to the pest?
- A. AxR-1
- B. St. George
- C. Börner
- D. 333EM
Cheers, and good luck!
"Oh, you rootstock?"
A.
Masi – ha!!! Gods of inside jokes are smiling upon you today…
If one of these simply said Zinfandel, that's what I would choose…but since that's not the case, I'm putting my big girl britches on and taking a stab in the dark by selecting:
A
(crossing fingers instead of busy consulting google)
Vinnie – I admire the bravery! :)
I'll go with the crowd on this one and say A. One of these days I am going to know an answer by myself and the world will end. :)
Good question Joe! Definitely wine geek worthy… I'll stick with the A boys ;)
Thanks to all the brave contributors! Here's the official answer:
A. AxR-1
California grape growers made a costly error when they grafted vine plantings onto AxR-1 rootstock (an abbreviation for a name based on its parentage, "Aramon Rupestris Ganzin No. 1") – turns out that it was not actually entirely resistant to Phylloxera, requiring expensive replanting when the louse swiftly infected vineyards in the 1980s.
Cheers!
As a retired Dry Creek ISonoma County) Zin grower on St. George rootstock knows, UCDavis got AxR1 wrong.
Dennis – Indeed!