Omega Graft
I was just reading an interesting blog post about Ungrafted vines and unpasteurized cheese. You can read it here. He makes the assertion that ungrafted wines are different in their flavors that grafted vines. I’ve heard this before that you can tell a difference between grafted and ungrafted vines. (If you need a refresher on why we have grafted vines, read this.) Many think this is also closer to a true wine when there is no interference with the rootstock.
Well, we are blessed here in Washington state with probably the largest collection of ungrafted vines in the world. Eastern Washington is largely ungrafted because phylloxera hasn’t or won’t make it into the vineyards. It could be a combination of many things. The arid climate makes it tough for the louse to spread from vine to vine. The cold winters also takes it’s toll on the bug. The other thing is that eastern Washington, for the most part, is not a monoculture like most of Europe and California. The vineyards are broken up by orchards, hop yards, wheat, etc… making it difficult for the the bug to jump around.
Here in western Washington phylloxera was found a long time ago, but doesn’t seem to be spreading. There are probably more acres of grafted vines in western Washington than eastern, but this is for reasons other than phylloxera. One of the side effects of grafting can be to speed up the ripening process which we need here west of the cascades.
Anyway, if you searching for a source of ungrafted wines, look no further than Washington state wines!
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