A scientific study shows that the pinot noir grape variety has not changed in 600 years

BarcelonaThere is scientific evidence that Viticulture was already present among Europeans 11,000 years agoBut there are many things we don't know about how that crop was grown. Now, a study published in the journal Nature Researchers have been able to trace the origins of Pinot Noir grapes back in time thanks to the genome of 54 archaeological grape seeds, including 47 samples from France and 2 from Ibiza, dating back 4,000 years. This in-depth analysis has led to several conclusions. One of the discoveries made by the team led by Ludovic Orlando, director of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics (CAGT) in Toulouse, is that the Pinot Noir variety has remained unchanged for 600 years, indicating continuous cultivation. The medieval sample, found in Valenciennes, is exactly identical to the modern variety.

The samples cover a range from the Bronze Age to approximately 500 years ago, at the end of the medieval period, and have also been able to demonstrate, thanks to their age of between 2,800 and 2,400 years, the coexistence of wild and domesticated vines, as well as their connection to the Levant and, later, the Caucasus.

Exchange of cuttings

Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that exchanges also existed at that time, as the authors have found genetically identical clones that point to the use of vegetative propagation; therefore, the cultivation of new plants from cuttings or stems. This exchange took place over hundreds of kilometers in the mid-Iron Age (approximately between 625 and 400 BC) and has been shown to be an important pillar of winemaking culture at that time. It was also a common practice later, during the Roman and medieval periods, when extensive exchange networks existed for the dissemination of vine cuttings; this is the case with the Ibizan samples studied. However, although the authors argue that these findings "improve our understanding of both the genetics of vineyard cultivation in France and the underlying cultural processes," they acknowledge that "doubts still exist about the early cultivation of grapes due to a lack of archaeological evidence."