Have you ever heard that the plant of the vineyard is formed in turn by two plants? Do you know why is this so?
In the nineteenth century,
phylloxera, a disease that attacks the foot of the plant, spread across Europe in an uncontrolled way and swept virtually all the vineyards. As a result, the entire sector fell into a deep crisis. The solution to this disease was found later, grafting American vines feet, resistant to disease, with the aerial parts of European vineyards.
For this reason, today, the vineyard is a plant with two different parts: the aerial and the foot. The foot part of almost all vineyards in the world has an American origin, while the aerial part, which is responsible to equip the plant and determine the personality of the grape variety, has usually a European origin.
