The Vines of the Future...Are Here

Wine Blast with Susie and Peter

There's a revolution going on in the vineyards. It's coming to a glass near you soon. And it could change the world of wine forever.
We're talking super vines. Bionic vines. PIWIs. Resistant vines. Hybrids. TEA vines - the new generation, 'assisted evolution' kit. Whatever you want to call them - there's a new breed of grape vines spreading fast all over the wine world, from Champagne to Piedmont, fuelled by the urgent need to reduce vineyard treatments and face up to climate change.
In this show we talk to wine growers and researchers at the cutting edge of this fast-evolving field - Nicola Biasi, Dr Riccardo Velasco, Professor Mario Pezzotti and Hugo Drappier. If that isn't enough, we also have some BREAKING NEWS for you.
The criticism often levelled at PIWI or resistant vines is that they don't make very nice wines. We challenge that notion with a tasting of our own - which includes some great value recommendations you can try out too (including a £6 bargain at Tesco...)
Thanks for tuning in. We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe. Or you can find contact info, together with all details from this episode including full wine recommendations, on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S6 E7 - The Vines of the Future
Instagram: @susieandpeter

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1. The Vines of the Future...Are Here (00:00:00)

2. Welcome (00:00:05)

3. In this episode we have some EXPLOSIVE content (00:00:13)

4. Taster quotes (00:01:02)

5. Setting the scene (00:02:14)

6. Vines need treatments, and that's not good for the planet (00:02:32)

7. The wine world needs to reduce treatments - so what to do? (00:04:26)

8. One major solution is tinkering with vines to make them more resistant (00:04:49)

9. You can do this via biotech (we'll come back to this) (00:05:16)

10. Another way is breeding - to create resistant vines, like PIWIs (00:05:36)

11. Don't PIWIs just make bad wine..?! (00:07:14)

12. New-generation PIWIs would beg to differ (00:07:56)

13. Nicola Biasi interview (00:08:22)

14. MID-EPISODE RECAP (00:19:15)

15. Dr Riccardo Velasco interview (00:19:38)

16. The biotech approach for developing new disease-resistant vines (00:29:20)

17. CRISPR Cas9 to edit the vine's genome (00:29:52)

18. This is not GMO! (00:30:10)

19. You simply get a new clone of a classic variety by 'assisted evolution' (or TEA) (00:30:35)

20. BREAKING NEWS: landmark new planting of the first assisted evolution vines in Europe (00:32:07)

21. Mario Pezzotti interview (00:32:22)

22. Hugo Drappier interview (00:42:48)

23. Tasting and recommending PIWI wines (00:48:39)

24. FINAL SUMMARY (00:51:30)

25. Outro (00:51:55)