4. The Vine Flashcards
Name the main Eurasian species of vine.
Vitis vinifera
What is the main vine species used in winemaking?
Vitis vinifera
How long has Vitis vinifera been used to make wine?
Several thousand years
Why are the 3 species of vines native to North America rarely used to produce grapes for winemaking? Why are they beneficial?
-Unattractive flavors
Why are the native North American vines beneficial? What are they used for?
- Resistant to Phylloxera (vine pest that attacks roots)
- Used to produce rootstocks onto which V. vinifera vines are grafted
Why are the main differences between grape varieties to consumers and to growers?
Consumers: color and flavor
Growers: budding/ripening times, resistance to diseases
What are the two techniques used to preserved the unique qualities of a variety?
Cutting and Layering
What is a cutting? Where is this method most widely used?
A cutting is a section of a vine shoot that is planted and then grows as a new plant. Most widely used at commercial nurseries that sell vines to growers.
What is layering?
- Takes place in the vineyard
- A cane is bent down and a section of it is buried. The cane tip points upwards out of the ground. The buried section takes root. The cane linking the new growth to the original plant is cut.
Due to phylloxera risk, which method of preserving grape varieties is better?
Cuttings
What word is sometimes used synonymously with ‘variety’?
Cultivar
What is clonal selection?
When vines with positive utatopms are se;ected for further propagation by cutting or layering, so that the positive characteristics of these vines can be carried forward in new plantings.
Examples: better fruit quality, better resistance to disease
What is a clone?
- Each individual vine or group of vines that shows a particular set of unique characteristics
- Typically so similar that they’re still the same grape variety however some mutations have such a significant effect that they resulting plants are treated as new varieties.
Name two examples of clones that mutated into their own variety.
Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc (from Pinot Noir)
What is cross-fertilization? What is the result?
In order to find new, better grape varieties, researchers take the pollen from the male part of a flower of one vine and transfer it to the female part of the flower of another vine for fertilization. The pollinated flower develops into a grape with seeds that can be planted and grown into a new variety.
- The result is a new grape variety (even if the parents are the same).
- Process is difficult and time-consuming.
What is a crossing? What is the term typically reserved for? Name two well-know examples.
When a new variety is produced from two parents of the same species
-Technically, every grape variety used today is a crossing but its reserved for varieties bred by researchers.
Examples:
1. Muller Thurgau (Riesling X Madeleine Royale)
2. Pinotage (Pinot Noir X Cinsault)
What is a hybrid? What is it typically used for?
A vine whose parents come from two different vine species. Will typically have at least one American vine as a parent.
Used as rootstocks, not typically used in winemaking.
Name the four parts of a vine.
- Green parts
- One-year-old wood
- Permanent wood
- Roots
What parts of the vine grow new each year?
The green parts:
- Leaves
- Buds
- Tendrils
- Flowers/Berries
- Shoot
What are buds? Where do they form? What will they become?
- Form in between leaf and shoot.
- “Embryonic shoots”
- Mature inside their casing, each bud contains in miniature all the structures that will become the shoot, leaves. flowers, and tendrils the following year.
What is the main responsibility of the leaves? Why is glucose important?
- Plant’s engine
- responsible for photosynthesis (plants use sunlight to convert water and CO2 to glucose and oxygen)
- Glucose is a sugar that is used to support vine growth and make ripe grapes tastes sweet.
What is the purpose of the tendrils?
Support the vine; grips a supporting structure in order to stay upright
What are flowers? What will they become?
The vine’s reproductive organs; have both male and female parts. Each flower that is successfully pollinated will become a berry.
What is one-year-old wood? Why is it important in grape growing?
During the winter after shoots have grown, they turn woody. The following spring, they become one-year-old wood. Buds become shoots.
-Important because typically vines with only produce fruit on the shoot that grow from the buds that developed in the previous year.
