The future of viticulture is here, now. The new Fungus Resistance Varieties allows us to make the reality of quality and sustainability more achievable than ever.

Find out what FRG are

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What are Fungus Resistance Grape (FRG) Varieties

The new Fungus Resistant Varieties of Vines, also known as PIWI (pilzwiderstandsfähig in deutsch) are varieties obtain from guided hybridations, which consists in the withdrawal of pollen from a donator vine and impollinate another vine; this is usually done with a Vitis Vinifera vine (which is the vine used to produce all the main wines) and not european Vitis such as Vitis Labrusca. The latter provide the resistaces to the main diseases which cause huge damages in the vineyards every year, such as Powdery and Grey Mildew. Not european vines have developed their resistances due to the hundreds of years they have cohabited with the diseases.

 
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How the resistances work and what is the future of viticulture

Resistances, inscribed in the genetic structure of plants work in many different ways, the most common is propably ipersensibility, which consists in the fast identification of the disease and a fast reaction to it. In the picture we can find an example of such reaction, the dark spot in the middle of the yellow circles is the point where the disease tried to enter in the leaf; the yellow outline is caused by the plant killing the tissue around the disease to block it’s spread.

At the moment such varieties are still a novelty in the wine world and are often looked upon with a suspicious eye. We believe in their potential to reduce human intervention in the vineyard. We believe in the introduction of disease resistant varieties in production disciplinaries of quality wines and in the creation of certifications similar to the one given to biologic wine as to legitimize FRG varieties in the world.