By Kathrin Schnurrer
Neustadt. ‘Part of the problem is that people prefer to deal with problems rather than look for solutions,’ says Miriam Jäger. It’s a statement that applies to most situations in life. However, scientist Miriam Jäger and her colleague Katharina Kleiner do not deal with everyday problems in their work, but with a question that is important for the future of viticulture: how can Piwi wines be made more popular?
Piwi is an abbreviation for fungus-resistant grape varieties, which have been bred to be largely resistant to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew, downy mildew and black rot. To achieve this, classic grape varieties are crossed with robust wild vines.
These vines – which include Sauvignac, Solaris, Muscaris, Souvignier Gris and Satin Noir, for example – require less spraying (two to four times instead of seven to ten times a year), saving money and protecting the environment. But somehow, Piwis are still treated like the poor relation, as Jäger has observed. Kleiner says: ‘Even winegrowers who cultivate Piwis find it difficult to market them.’
Jäger and Kleiner are working to improve the overall standing of the ‘new robust grape varieties’ – as they prefer to call them. They are doing this with partners from research institutions and universities across Europe. The two research assistants at the Chair of Sustainable Entrepreneurship at the Wine Campus in Neustadt are part of a research project in which scientists from Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Serbia and Switzerland are working on ‘promoting sustainable viticulture in a changing world with fungus-resistant grape varieties’.
‘GrapeBreed4IPM’ – as the project is called – is a four-year study involving 21 partners, including the French Institut Francais de la Vigne et du Vin, the Spanish Asociación Plataforma Tecnológica del Vino de España, the Swiss Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the German Julius Kühn Institute. The European Union is providing five million euros, with Switzerland contributing an additional 600,000 euros. ‘The aim of the project is to further develop robust grape varieties and analyse the conditions for their successful introduction to the market,’ according to a description. The European Union wants to reduce the use of pesticides, and Piwis are ideal for this purpose. It continues: ‘If conventional plant protection products continue to be restricted without providing viable alternatives, a significant proportion of European vineyards could be at risk.’
In January and February, the two Palatinate scientists packed their bags and held workshops in the participating countries, where people from the fields of viticulture, research, breeding, politics, associations and trade developed strategies to make Piwis more popular.
One of these meetings took place in Ludwigshafen, home to the University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Society (HWG). Incidentally, the Neustadt Wine Campus is a joint institution of the HWG Ludwigshafen, the University of Kaiserslautern, the Technical University of Bingen and the Rural Service Centre in Neustadt.
A dozen representatives recently gathered in Ludwigshafen to brainstorm ideas for a ‘Piwi Future’. One example that was developed is to create a Piwi sparkling wine line that specifically targets young consumers. Another is to establish a Piwi alliance with ‘ambassadors’ consisting of winemakers, consumers and retailers. Or: not marketing Piwi as a ‘special category’, but treating it on a par with traditional grape varieties in marketing. The viticulture of the future is about more than breeding new
grape varieties or further developing existing ones, says Kleiner, citing a shortcoming of the past: ‘A lot of breeding was done without considering the consumer.’
The researchers now want to focus particularly on consumers and have developed a survey to find out more about people’s criteria for buying wine. A total of seven groups are working on the EU project, which is scheduled for completion in 2028, and they all have their own work packages. The two women from the Palatinate are responsible for the area of ‘co-design’, which includes recommendations for international market strategies, while other researchers are working on ‘molecular basis of disease resistance’ or ‘cross-breeding and new genomic techniques’.
Piwis are often used in cuvées, i.e. wines that contain different grape varieties. Kleiner cites an example from France: ‘Voltis is allowed to be used as a cuvée partner in champagne.’ But she believes that the wines should actually stand on their own and be sold under their own name – and not be ‘hidden’: ‘For me, a cuvée is not the solution.’
In Germany and Switzerland, Piwis are grown on around 3.5 per cent of the vineyard area, in Spain on less than one per cent, and in Austria on two per cent. So there is still a lot of room for improvement.
Survey
If you would like to take part in the survey, you can find it at www.weincampus-neustadt.de, keywords: research, business administration, Professor Marc Dreßler, research projects, GrapeBreed4IPM
