Included in December’s edition of Decanter magazine, Dr Richard Smart, an Australian viticultural scientist, explains how advanced the father of evolution was in evolutionary principles - especially when it came to the vine.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th year since his earth- shattering publication ‘The Origin of Species’. That you may know, but did you also know that Darwin was one of the first Europeans to taste New Zealand wine? He did so on board HMS Beagle in December 1835, during a stopover in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands.

According to Darwin, the vine is the perfect example of evolutionary principles. Whilst studying climbing plants, he observed that grapevines produce either tendrils (for climbing) or bunches of grapes (for reproduction) opposite each leaf, helping him realise that grapevines evolved in a forested habitat, now believed to have been around 60 million years ago. They adapted to the shaded areas, literally developing arms to pull themselves up and into the sunlight, where they would bare fruit.

Dr. Smart goes on to explain Darwin’s most important contribution to vine and wine. The root louse of Phylloxera wiped out countless vines in Europe from the 1860s onwards and nobody had any idea what to do when it came to finding a way to control this little yellow insect, until French scientists Planchon and Millardet of Montpellier, and Riley and Munson in America came up with the solution using Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Phylloxera had been imported from America, where the vines there had become resistant. The idea was to graft the sensitive European rootstocks derived from American species. This principle of grafting on to Phylloxera resistant rootstocks is still used today to resist pests, and has been one of the biggest advancements in agriculture to date.

Next time I’m drinking a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, Charles, I’ll be thinking of you. Thank you.

For the full article and much more, check out December’s issue of Decanter.