{"id":14151,"date":"2022-12-21T15:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tastingclimate.wpengine.com\/?p=14151"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:13:22","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T19:13:22","slug":"the-importance-of-plant-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/the-importance-of-plant-material\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Plant Material"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>This article originally appeared in the Spring 2022 print issue of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/quench.me\/drinks\/were-in-it-together-what-quench-magazine-is-doing-to-help-canadian-producers-during-covid-19\/\">Quench<\/a>\u00a0Magazine.\u00a0Michelle Bouffard talks to\u00a0<strong>Lilian B\u00e9rillon<\/strong>\u00a0about his work and his vision. Find out why B\u00e9rillon&#8217;s great work and dedication are critical for the future of wine, especially in the context of climate change.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Lilian B\u00e9rillon is passionate, a man without compromise.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Early in his career he was distraught at the declining age of vineyards in France and elsewhere in Europe, noting that vines that used to have a life expectancy of 80 to 100 years now averaged 20 to 25 years. B\u00e9rillon\u2019s observations led him to start his own nursery in the Southern Rh\u00f4ne more than fifteen years ago with the goal of preserving existing genetic plant material, selling<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/quench.me\/longform\/how-canadian-winemakers-deal-climate-change\/\" target=\"_blank\">&nbsp;healthy vines<\/a>, and offering solutions to producers. B\u00e9rillon believes that by adopting best practices in the nursery and in the vineyard, vines will not only live longer, but they will be able to adapt to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So \u2013 what does B\u00e9rillon do differently than other nurseries? Many things, and every step is important. A visit to his nursery in Villeneuve is enlightening. First, all his 2.5 million vines are grafted by hand, and he favours the old-style whip grafting method over the machine omega grafting. B\u00e9rillon claims a better welding occurs between the rootstock (<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/quench.me\/drinks\/wine-hip-hop-festival\/\" target=\"_blank\">American<\/a>&nbsp;rootstock) and the scion (vitis vinifera) with this technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Massal selection is also preferred over clonal selection. This method preserves genetic diversity by propagating a multitude of isolated individuals in multiple vineyards according to their characteristics, rather than focusing on clones which reduce diversity. However, while massal selection is allowed for the scion, it is not at this time permitted for rootstock selection. This is a mistake, he thinks. \u201cScience has weakened many rootstocks which were not declining before. 161-49 Couderc favoured in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/quench.me\/longform\/burgundy-home-more-than-chardonnay\/\">Burgundy<\/a>&nbsp;is an example,\u201d B\u00e9rillon points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/quench.me\/longform\/the-importance-of-plant-material\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN QUENCH MAGAZINE &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article originally appeared in the Spring 2022 print issue of\u00a0Quench\u00a0Magazine.\u00a0Michelle Bouffard talks to\u00a0Lilian B\u00e9rillon\u00a0about<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[185,33],"class_list":["post-14151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-en","tag-lilian-berillon-en","tag-vine-nursery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastingclimatechange.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}