Missouri's role in saving the European wine industry
"The phylloxera plague or crisis was huge," says Stone Hill Winery CEO Jon Held. "It literally was killing tens of thousands of acres of [European] vineyards, killing that whole culture of the wine industry. And the French put together these scientific panels of top researchers to try to figure out what was happening. They were in touch with leading growers and researchers over here, and C. V. Riley, [Missouri’s state entymologist, who] finally identified the causal agent, the phylloxera root louse."
“Phylloxera,” says Doug Frost, Master of Wine and Master Sommelier, “we think in 1861, takes a trip aboard a steamship across the Atlantic. We think because it was a steamship, not a sailing vessel, that the time was shortened enough to allow the bug to survive.
“95 or more percent of all the vines grown anywhere in the world are planted on American rootstock.”
“And it shows up in the Rhone valley and it is no exaggeration to say within 10 years or so, the entire French wine industry is decimated. And it spreads to Spain and Italy and everywhere else. And so it is also no exaggeration to say that 95 or more percent of all the vines grown anywhere in the world are planted on American rootstock, because it turned out there's your cure. And it's C. V. Riley and it's George Husmann and it's Isidor Bush and Herman Yeager, who quickly figured this one out," Frost continues. "They're like, 'Well, we coexist with the plant, so you graft our American rootstock with European vines. It's expensive, it's difficult, but it can be done. And your plants will be fine. Your wine industry will recover.' It took decades for that to happen because it's a very expensive process. And we think millions of plants were shipped from Missouri by those four individuals to France, such that there is a statue in Southern France to them today because it's understood. They saved not just the French wine industry, but frankly, the wine industry [as a whole]."