From Merlot to Pinot Noir, from Chardonnay to Sauvignon, European wines have their cradle in the Southern Caucasus: their ancestor is a single cultivated vine, which was followed by a long series of crosses with European wild vines. The reconstruction, based on the analysis of the genetic material of 204 vines (Vitis vinifera), is the result of an Italian research and is published in the journal Nature Communications by the group coordinated by the University of Udine, with Michele Morgante and Gabriele Di Gaspero. .
The analysis of the DNA of the vines also suggests that, in Europe, the richest genetic diversity is found in the vineyards of Italy and France.
Although the vine has been cultivated for at least four millennia in the eastern Mediterranean and for two millennia in western Europe, the origin of the vines had never been accurately reconstructed so far and the hypotheses suggested the existence of more domestic cultivation events that occurred in independently.
The answer has now come from the data provided by the Italian research, which has identified the genetic imprints of the selections that over time the farmers have made in the vines, crossing them with each other, until reaching the varieties that today are the basis of wines known in Worldwide.
