Phylloxera by Christy Campbell

Phylloxera

How Wine was Saved for the World

by Christy Campbell

Harper Perennial, 2004, ISBN 0007115369, black and white photographic plates, illustrated with line drawings in text, paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, crease to back middle, age toned pages, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“The near-collapse of the French wine industry in the second half of the nineteenth century is a story of ecological disaster on an epic scale.  The unwitting culprit was a French wine-merchant who imported American vines without realising that their roots carried a tiny, destructive aphid called phylloxera.  Ony after one million hectares of French vineyards had been destroyed – and a range of bizarre theories explaining the cause of the blight suggested – did Jules-Emile Planchon propose the solution.  Grafting aphid resistant American vines onto their infected French cousins was a controversial remedy that ignited passions on both sides of the Atlantic.  And the story is not yet over.  Even now, new strains of phylloxera are attacking the vineyards of Australia, California and New Zealand...”