Dying on the Vine: How Phylloxera Transformed Wine

Chapter 2: La Défense: Sand, Submersion, and Sulfiding

51 the bug breaks out Official recognition of the bug’s “unique responsibility” for the disease at first did little to abet the growing chaos. Between 1875 and 1881 the bug swept northward up the Rhône from the Hérault into southern Beaujolais and beyond. In the Gironde, the bug jumped the river and rapidly proceeded north, devastating the Charentais’ Cognac grapes. And, in a grand two-pronged pincers movement, the north arm of the westerly invasion from Montpellier met up with the eastward flow from Bordeaux in the region just east of Figeac; and the great southern arc of the vineyards of Montpellier, Carcassonne, Auch, and Bordeaux were simultaneously destroyed by the pincer’s lower prong. As expected, in areas newly under attack by the bug, disbelief, denial, and bravado were the attitudes of the day. But in the areas already devastated by the insect, any and all courses of action offering even the slightest hint of relief were seized upon immediately. For the most part, remediation consisted of accepting the American vines in one role or another.The Hérault, first to lose its vines, was first to make efforts to recover. These efforts were led by the energetic members of SCAH and the equally resourceful faculty of the university and the École at Montpellier. Phase differences over space and time—different regions of the country were in different phases of encounter with the plague at different times— contributed mightily to the chaos. There was considerable difference in chapter 2 La Défense Sand, Submersion, and Sulfiding 52 | La Défense behavior among regions still relatively free of the bug, those where the struggle was fully engaged, and those where the vignoble was totally lost. Mancey, a village of the Saône-et-Loire, in lower Burgundy, offers a doleful example. In 1876 the first cases of “the spot” were observed in several of the vignobles around town. Yet M. Millot, the mayor, was still full of hope that some vagary of climate in the region would save them (Millot 1876, 10). Three years later, all was lost. But still there were doubters. A reporter for La vigne française described the responses of a group of regional viticulturalists taking a guided tour of Mancey. At first the visitors saw only a healthy vineyard, full of vines, apparently green and vigorous. Already those visitors who believe that the evil has been exaggerated triumphantly say that the phylloxera is far from causing at Mancey all those ravages so often talked about. “Patience!” respond those among us who have already made a previous visit to Mancey. . . . We follow our guides and turn right. . . . As soon as we arrive at mid-slope, a dolorous spectacle, lamentable, offers itself to our eyes. As far as our view extends, we see only yellow patches, desiccated leaves, and dead or dying vines. We are face to face with what is conventionally called “the patch” [la tache], but what one more justly calls “the disaster of Mancey.” (“Une visite au vignoble” 1879, 43–44) Several months later, the attitude in the whole department had finally shifted: The more considerable extent that the phylloxera invasion takes in the department the more the indifference of the vignerons disappears to make way for—unhappily—a very justified uneasiness. Indeed, the number of reported invasions in the department goes up rapidly, not because the bug is moving any more quickly, but because the vignerons, now seriously alarmed, have finally decided to call to the attention of the committees of vigilance the state of certain parcels of land that, already some time ago, they saw dry up. (“Rapports des Comités” 1880, 110) Finally taking the threat seriously, the vignerons reported the infestations , but it was far too late. Had they not ridiculed the vignerons of the Hérault for bad care of their vines and told themselves “It can’t happen here,” the Burgundians might have been able to avoid some of the disasters that befell them. Other regions far from the devastation of the Midi showed the same patterns of behavior. In Champagne, the comice agricole (similar to the administration of the county fair) of Épernay scheduled a meeting in early March 1877 at which Monsieur JL spoke about the troubles in La Défense | 53 the Midi.1 JL’s talk was obviously intended to raise “a cry of alarm” against the dangers represented...