Swiss wine history & Swiss wines - interview with José Vouillamoz скачать в хорошем качестве

Swiss wine history & Swiss wines - interview with José Vouillamoz

Learn about Swiss wines & history with http://www.aroundtheworldin80harvests... interview with Dr José Vouillamoz who describes the history, wine regions and wines of Switzerland in this full length interview. José Vouillamoz is a leading botanist and has discovered more than 300 different grape varieties. Please subscribe to our channel and follow #80harvests on: Twitter:   / 80harvests   Instagram:   / 80harvests_wine   Facebook:   / 80harvests   Transcript: Jose, you just released your book on the history and grape varieties of Switzerland. Can you give us a brief history of Switzerland in terms of grape growing? Switzerland is a treasure trove for ampelographers Before going through history I need to give some numbers of the actual situation. We grow officially two hundred, more than 250 grape varieties on a mere 15,000 hectares. It's huge it's probably a world record. It's really a lot! Out of these more than 250, I have counted 80 that are called indigenous, and out of this 80, 59 of them are crossings. Recent crossings obtained in research stations, and only 21 are really what I call heritage grape varieties. And these heritage grape varieties cover six percent of the country. For me these numbers, okay it's a lot of numbers, but I think it's a bit shocking because what represents your own history, your heritage, your identity, I mean when I say you're a speak about Switzerland, it's only 6% of what you produce. For me it's not enough. Why do you think that is? Why it has become so? Oh well that that's little bit historical, historically related. That's what we used to cultivate before the mid 19th century. We had introduced ancient varieties like Pinot, like Sauvignon, like Muscat, but we used to cultivate our own varieties. At the turn of the 19th/ 20th century, like every other region we had to struggle with phylloxera that was attacking the roots of European varieties. When people had to replant their vineyards onto American root stocks they had to make a decision, do we continue cultivating what their father, grandfather, great-grandfather was cultivating? Or do we choose something that is easier to sell, easier to cultivate, more resistant to disease and more productive? That's what they did. So they replaced almost everything that was indigenous with easier varieties and we have the result more than 100 years later. But Switzerland has a very, very long history in terms of viticulture. Of course we know that the Romans have introduced some in some places the viticulture, may be introduced some varieties, but we have no evidence, and we have evidence that before the Romans, the Celts were cultivating vineyards in Switzerland, especially in Valais where we are right now, with this this video, And it dates back to 800 BC.