Pinot Noir’s Hold on People’s Taste Buds is Surprisingly Long

Pinot Noir’s Hold on People’s Taste Buds is Surprisingly Long

An analysis of ancient grape seed DNA reveals the first known case of humans in France deliberately cloning plants, including for Pinot Noir.

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron

In wine, there is truth, to quote Pliny the Elder, that is to say the truth about humans. Wine has been a staple of human consumption for thousands of years: it is depicted in the frescoes of Pompeii and celebrated in epic poems like the Iliad and the Odyssey. We found him inside The tomb of King Tutankhamunin traces on 9,000 year old Chinese pottery and written in the Bible. But despite its ubiquity and enduring popularity, scientists have struggled to determine exactly when and how humans began producing wine as we might recognize it today.

And now a new study of ancient grape seeds found across France adds to the mystery, revealing that humans have been consuming at least one grape variety for hundreds of years.

The researchers analyzed the DNA of nearly 50 wild and domestic grape seeds collected from archaeological sites, mainly across France. The pips dated from the Bronze Age, about 2,300 BCE, to 1,500 CE, or nearly 4,000 years ago.

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Comparing the seeds’ DNA with each other and that of modern grape varieties revealed a “very surprising” result, says Ludovic Orlando, lead author of the study and research director of the Toulouse Center for Anthrobiology and Genomics at the University of Toulouse, France. Some ancient grapes had been cloned.

Beginning in the mid-Iron Age (around 500 BCE), some grape seeds had the same or very similar DNA. This means that French winemakers across the country have had to move from domesticating wild grapes to directly propagating them, that is, cloning them, taking cuttings from a plant to create new plantings. The results shed light on the history of wine in France, a region world-famous for its wine, as well as across the world.

Interestingly, one of the cloned grape samples dating back to medieval times was “genetically identical” to Pinot Noir, a grape variety widely grown today around the world, Orlando says.

“We found the same plant 600 years ago, in the 15th century,” says Orlando, “the century of Joan of Arc.” This means that not only has Pinot Noir remained popular for centuries, but people have loved it so much that they haven’t changed it much in all that time. “They kept it as it was, propagated in clone form – in photocopy form – for centuries, literally,” he says.

As for whether today’s Pinot tastes like what medieval knights minted at the French royal court in Paris, the grape’s DNA can’t reveal much about flavor. Wine is a multifaceted product: grape variety, fermentation process, environment and additives.

“Wine is a complex biocultural product,” explains Orlando. But DNA can shed light on certain aspects, like sugar content and grape size. Ultimately, there is much to learn about the history of wine and, as Pliny the Elder said, about us.

“Wine and grapes are organic and cultural. Think about your favorite wine or my favorite wine: it says something about you, as well as your culture,” says Orlando.