In 2009 we celebrate Charles Darwin´s 200th birthday the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. This got me thinking about Darwinism, natural selection, and the survival of the fittest. If it works for apes it should work for grapes.According to Julian Jeffs in The Wines of Spain “the forty or so varieties that were planted in the eighteenth century (in la Rioja) have been reduced to seven”. Some of the 33 MIA´s are no doubt alive and well outside la Rioja. But others no doubt share the fate of Calagrano. Now prohibited in the la (more…)
