THE GREAT WINE BLIGHT

by George Ordish ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1972

From the vine comes the grape comes the wine, a natural process which has contributed to man's dining pleasure for centuries. But in the 1860's and several decades after a tiny but sinister interloper from America -- the insect phylloxera -- threatened to destroy the vineyards of the world, hitting particularly hard those of France. Ordish, author of numerous books on crop pest control, follows the phylloxera's peregrinations from first continental appearance in 1863 via steamship to the feverish quest for diagnosis and remedy -- the latter appropriately coming from America where phylloxera-resistant roots were eventually developed and grafted onto European vines. Voila! Viniculturalists rejoiced but the old controversy -- are post-graft vintages as fine as those of the pre-phylloxera period? -- still lingers among connoisseurs. More important however were the social and economic consequences of the blight, Ordish documenting the bankruptcies, the desolation in wine country communes (which prompted many Frenchmen to emigrate to Algeria), the radical revolts in the provences, etc. Written without great flourish, this history of a to-the-death rencounter between plant and pest can be read equally as a tribute to 19th-century agrotechnical progress or simply a corking good study of that tender grape.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION