274: Beyond Foxy: The Case for Hybrid Winegrapes

Can hybrid grapes revolutionize the wine world? Adam Huss — Host of the Beyond Organic podcast and Co-owner of Centralas Cellars breaks down what a hybrid truly is, explaining how traditional breeding — and nature itself — has long crossed grape species. With over 70 grape species worldwide, today's modern hybrids are the result of generations of crossing, backcrossing, and innovation.

We explore the impact of WWII on agriculture, France’s ban on hybrids in appellation wines, and why developing new hybrids is critical for disease resistance, flavor discovery, and more sustainable farming.

Plus, Adam shares insights into trialing the “married vine” system — a potential game-changer for soil health, pest management, and flavor expression.

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Transcript

[00:00:03] Beth Vukmanic: Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, Executive Director

[00:00:13] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner Wine Estates with longtime SIP Certified Vineyard in the first ever. SIP Certified Winery speaks with Adam Huss, host of the Beyond Organic Podcast and co-owner of Centralis Cellars.

[00:00:32] Adam breaks down what a hybrid truly is, explaining how traditional breeding and nature itself has long crossed grape species with over 70 grape species worldwide. Today's modern hybrids are the result of generations of crossing, backcrossing, and innovation.

[00:00:50] We explore the impact of World War II on agriculture, France's ban on hybrids and Appalachian wines, and why developing new hybrids is critical for disease resistance, flavor discovery, and more sustainable farming.

[00:01:03] Plus, Adam shares insights into trialing the married vine system, a potential game changer for soil health, pest management, and flavor expression.

[00:01:12] When Lizbeth didn't get into nursing school on her first try, she could have given up. Instead, she partnered with her mentor Alex, to make a new plan, attend classes part-time, build up her resume and get hands-on hospital work experience. Now Lizbeth has been accepted into Cuesta College's nursing program and her dream of becoming a nurse is back on track.

[00:01:36] Lizbeth is a Vineyard Team, Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholar. You can help more students like her who are the children of Vineyard and winery workers reach their dreams of earning a degree by donating to the Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship. Just go to vineyardteam.org/donate.

[00:01:53] Now let's listen in.

[00:01:58] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Adam Huss. He is the host of the Beyond Organic Podcast and also co-owner of Centralis Winery in Los Angeles, California. And today we're gonna talk about hybrid grape varieties. Welcome to the podcast, Adam.

[00:02:11] Adam Huss: Thanks, Craig. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:17] Craig Macmillan: So let's just start with the basics. What are hybrid grape varieties?

[00:02:22] Adam Huss: I should also say I'm a fan of your podcast as well, so it's really fun to be here.

[00:02:26] Craig Macmillan: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:02:28] Adam Huss: Been listening for a while. So hybrids, I mean, it's really simple. It's funny, I see stuff on Instagram sometimes where people just are so misinformed and they think that, you know, hybrid means like GMO or something like that.

[00:02:41] A hybrid simply is just, you take pollen from grape X, you put it on flowers from grape y, and if those two grapes are from different species, you have a hybrid. If they're from the same species, you just have a cross, and this is something that has been part of traditional breeding since forever. It's also what happens naturally in the wild.

[00:03:00] Or I hate, I actually just use two words I try not to use at all, which is like natural and wild, but in forests and streams forests and backyards without human intervention, these pollen get exchanged by wind and everything else and have led to, you know, some of the more. Old popular varieties of grapes that are, considered hybrids that we know of now, like Norton and Isabella and Kaaba.

[00:03:23] Nobody actually crossed them. They just happened. So yeah, that's, that's a hybrid. It's very simple.

[00:03:29] Craig Macmillan: That's what they are, what aren't they and what are some of the myths surrounding them?

[00:03:33] Adam Huss: yeah, great question. You can't generalize about hybrids. Generally speaking. So that's really important thing for people to wrap their heads around, which is because. You know, we'll get into this, but so much, so many hybrids are, and just hybrids in general, are wrapped up in prejudice because we live in this sort of viniferous centric wine world.

[00:03:56] You know, , those of us who are in wine, but there, you just can't generalize. The qualities of hybrids are just like humans. Like it depends on what your parents are. You know, you, you get different things every time you mix 'em up and you're not like your brother or sister. If you have a sibling, you know you're gonna be different from them even though you have the same parents.

[00:04:13] So that's the same thing happens with grapes. There's genetic diversity and mutation happens and. For hybrids, , the possibilities, the potentials are literally infinite. It's pretty incredible to know that possibility exists. There are over 70 species of grapes on earth besides vitus vara, and if you cross any of those two varieties, yeah, you'll get a genetic cross that's 50 50 of, of two different species.

[00:04:40] But that. Within that you could do that cross again and get a different variety of grape, even with the same cross. So it's just amazing.

[00:04:51] The modern hybrids that are now out there are. Often multi-species crosses and have been crossed. Generationally again and again and back crossed and recrossed. And so, you know, I was just looking at a hybrid grape that had five species of grapes in its family tree. I mean, there are family trees that would make the royals blush, honestly, in some of these hybrids.

[00:05:11] So it's not, it's not something that is just, can be just said. You can say one thing about it or that. And, and the idea of hybridizing doesn't imply anything at all, really, like it is just this process that happens that we've been doing for a long time. This might be a good thing to dispel some of the prejudices.

[00:05:34] You know, something like the word foxy often gets thrown around when we start talking about hybrids. I did a whole podcast about this what's really interesting, I just brought this word up to a, a young couple here in LA who are growing grapes and they, they had no idea what I was talking about.

[00:05:49] So that's kind of encouraging. Like in, in the younger generations, these prejudices and some of these words that we inherited from the last century , are dying out truly. Which is great, but it still persists and you still hear it a lot and. If anybody goes online and researches some of these grapes, so much of the information available online is actually still misinformation and prejudiced because it comes from this vinifirous centric culture.

[00:06:15] And so it's really important for people to understand that like foxy is not what it sounds like. It sounds like it would be this animalistic, musky, maybe scent gland tinged aroma, flavor thing, but. If you taste the grapes that are known as foxy and you go, you know, start researching this by tasting, you'll find that it's actually kind of delicious.

[00:06:37] It's usually fruity and you know, candy like strawberry raspberry flavors. And for those of us in the US. It's often something we associate with Grapiness because of Welchs. And the flavors of Welchs, which come from the Concord grape, which is a Foxy grape, are these grapey flavors that we grew up with.

[00:06:57] This sense of like grape candy and stuff like that. And that's a lot of times what you find in these, but again, it depends a lot on. The level of the compounds that are in that specific hybrid. Again, you can't, you can't generalize. And just like with anything, if you mix different compounds together, you'll get these nuances and you might have some of that flavor or aroma, but it'll be blended with other things.

[00:07:17] And so it takes on new characteristics. So it's way more complex than just thinking like a. All grapes that are hybridized are foxy. That's absolutely not true. Or that foxy is this monolithic thing or that foxy is bad. None of those are true. And then really the other thing to realize is in. Grapes in the native North American varieties of species of grapes.

[00:07:41] There's really only one that has been used traditionally in grape breeding and hybridization that has these flavors. And that's Vitus labrusca. It just happened to be used quite a bit because it's endemic to the East coast where a lot of the Europeans who started all this breeding were living and, and it was, you know, very readily apparent in the forest of the East coast.

[00:07:59] So that. Got used a lot and it's also got a lot of great qualities of fungal resistance and stuff like that. Muscadine is the other grape that has it, but it's got a different genetic structure so it doesn't get crossed a lot or hybridized a lot.

[00:08:11] Craig Macmillan: So like, what are the advantages of hybrids where you take vinifira and you cross it with a Native American indigenous grape? What are the benefits?

[00:08:21] Adam Huss: Yeah. Another great question. Just , the historical perspective on this is really important. I think. So, you know, Europeans came here a couple hundred years ago, and eventually they brought some of their favorite plants over, one of which were their grapes. And what they noticed right away is that their grapes, I.

[00:08:38] Suffered and died without exception, just across the board. Anything they brought over grape wise just kept dying, kept dying. You know, many people tried for a century at least, you know, including people like Thomas Jefferson, people with enormous amounts of resources, and they just failed. They failed to grow these grapes.

[00:08:56] Meanwhile, you know, these things like. Norton, this, these hybridized grapes started developing and people noticed like, oh, this grape, it's crossing with some of , the local varieties and it's doing really well. So they began to realize, like they didn't know then that part of, one of the benefits that you get is phylloxera resistance, for example.

[00:09:16] But that was a big one and came to save, you know, Europe's wine industry at the end of the 19th century. But also you have these grapes that . Evolved with the fungal pathogens of this, of these climates of North America and other places around the planet. So they've developed resistance and tolerance for all these things.

[00:09:38] And so when you cross them with vinifira, you get some of the desirable characteristics that you might like from Vera, and hopefully you'll get some of that, you know, hardiness and fungal resistance and some of the other, just. General benefits of having hybridized interesting new flavors and characteristics

[00:09:56] Craig Macmillan: have you seen some examples of this in your, in your travels?

[00:10:01] Adam Huss: the fungal resistance and things like

[00:10:03] Craig Macmillan: resistance or Pierces disease resistance or anything like that.

[00:10:07] Adam Huss: Oh yeah. I mean, I. Whew, so many. I mean, the fact that people can grow grapes organically in Vermont for example, relies almost entirely on hybrids. You know, first of all, they have extremely cold winters there. They have extremely wet, hot, humid summers there. And if you try to grow vinifera there the only way to do it is with chemicals and, and a lot of heartache and, and high risk agriculture.

[00:10:35] But here we have somebody like Matt Niess, who's working entirely with hybrids, with his winery, north American Press, and basically he's not using any sprays in any of his vineyards in here in California because these. These grapes have genetics that developed for resistance to the fungal pathogens of the East Coast.

[00:10:55] And so you bring them to this nice dry, you know, Mediterranean climate, they're just like, they're crazy. They're like you know, they're, you can basically spray free now. I mean, some people have a problem with zero sprays because they don't want things to develop, but he has a 70-year-old baco noir vineyard, for example, that's in like a wet region in Sonoma that.

[00:11:18] He has never sprayed and it's pumping out grapes and looking beautiful every year. And the really interesting thing about it's, there are some inter plantations of vinfiera in that like somebody. Planted something. Maybe it was Pinot Noir in with the Baco. It's like one every, you know, like there's only a few, a handful of these scattered throughout the acre of the Baco noir, and you can tell which ones those are every year because they're just decimated by mildew by the end of the year, whereas the Baco is just spotless and beautiful.

[00:11:46] So that's a really like obvious,

[00:11:49] Craig Macmillan: What are the wines like? The bako noir? I've never had a bako noir.

[00:11:53] Adam Huss: Oh, his wines. Well, so Baco is nice. It's, I mean, it's higher acid. It's almost like a high acid. Gosh, I don't know what, it's hard. I, I, I hate to go down the rabbit hole of like trying to compare it to a vinifira, but it is unique. But it's a deep red almost interior, like with deep purple, higher acid flavors, but pretty balanced, really luscious. Dark fruited flavors maybe a little. Like Syrah, like meatiness, there may be a touch. You might find that it depends on the year. He's had a couple different vintages, so it's been really interesting to see. I'm, I'm kinda like loving following that year by year, seeing the vintage variation and what.

[00:12:35] Different things come out because nobody's really doing this. Nobody's, nobody's experimenting with these. So we don't really know how they'll do in, in California other than what he's doing. And just a couple other growers. But he also this year introduced awba for the first time back into California.

[00:12:50] The last catawba Vines were ripped out of California in like the sixties, and he, planted some and finally was able to harvest a crop this year and released what was once. California, I mean, the America's most popular wine from the Ohio River Valley is sparkling catawba, and it's like pink and just delicious, beautiful, beautiful stuff.

[00:13:10] If I can step back, I think a lot of the discussion of hybrids, again, comes from this perspective of vinifira culture and how do we. Help vinifera become better. How do we use these hybrids as a tool to help, you know, this sort of vinifira centric culture? But I, I would, I'd like to reframe it.

[00:13:31] I think a better way to look at this is hybridization is kind of just what we always do with agriculture. It's how you evolve and adapt your agriculture. Ecologically in the absence of modern chemistry that we have. So like before World War ii, and part of, and this is part of the history, France's history too, is like, you know, we had RA decimating their, their vineyards as well as. , we didn't just bring phylloxera back from North America, we brought BlackRock, Downey mildew, powdery mildew. So , their vines were just like dying. Like they were just dying. And so there was this urgent need and a lot of the hybridization, a lot of, some of our, you know, hybrids like Save El Blanc and things like that.

[00:14:15] Came from French breeders who were just trying to save the French wine industry. Like they just wanted to have wine, let alone vinifira. You know, it was that. It was pretty bad at the end of that set, you know? And so they developed these new things and then we, you know, things like Isabella and catawba and things like that were coming over from North America, some of our hybrids that came from here, and pretty soon they had these really productive, really hardy vines with new, interesting flavors that.

[00:14:41] People kinda liked 'cause they are like fruity and delicious and interesting and new and, and if you're a farmer and you have less inputs and you get a more productive, like higher yields on your vine, like, it's just kind of a no-brainer. And so people were just planting these things. They really were taking off.

[00:14:59] And in 1934, the French were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like our, our, first of all, our. Ancient vinifera cultures are going to be completely diluted, but second of all, we're gonna devalue the market 'cause we're gonna have all this like, it's too abundant, you know? So they made, in 1934, they made hybrids illegal in the French Appalachians.

[00:15:17] And so that legacy is something that still sticks with us. Of course then World War II happened and we. Didn't really pay much attention to wine at all 'cause we were just trying to survive. But once World War II was over and the the war machine transferred into the pesticide and industrial agricultural machine, the French realized they could keep Vera alive on root stocks of American hybrids or American native varieties by spraying them with these new novel chemistry chemicals.

[00:15:49] And so then they started enforcing the ban on hybrids because they could, and they knew they could have the, this alternative. And so that's when you saw like they had their own sort of version of reefer madness where you, you saw a lot of misinformation and hyperbole and outright propaganda and lies about these, these grapes because they were trying to get them out of French vineyards.

[00:16:10] It's important to realize that Ban the EU just lifted the ban on hybrids in Appalachian wine in 2021. So it's kind of not surprising that some of these prejudices and misinformation still persist today. We're not too far away from that. I.

[00:16:26] Craig Macmillan: And, and why was the band lifted? Do you know?

[00:16:30] Adam Huss: That's a great question. It's, it was lifted for ecological reasons because they're realizing these are really important to dealing with climate change. This is like, if you want a sustainable industry, you need to be able to adapt. When you're inside this, this world of vinifira, what I call the vinifira culture, which is, you know, very centered on Vera.

[00:16:50] You don't realize how strange it is. You know, it's kind of like growing up with a, a weird family, you know? It's all you know, so you don't know how strange they are until you start seeing the rest of the world. But to think that, you know, 50 years ago we just decided that maybe like. 10 grapes were the pinnacle of viticultural achievement for all time, and we've basically invested all of our energies into, you know, propagating those around the planet and preserving them at all costs is kind of strange when you think about the whole history of agriculture.

[00:17:20] And it's really only possible because of cheep fossil fuels and the novel chemistry that we. Have put into our systems. And so if you take those out, if you start thinking ecologically about how do you develop a wine system, I mean the question is like, does it make sense when farming in a world where the only constant is change and we just live in a dynamic world, does it make sense to try to do everything you can to prevent change?

[00:17:45] Like is prevention of change like a good strategy? And so I think, you know, diversity and adaptation are. What have always worked, you know, historically through agriculture, and that's kind of the future. I mean, in a real sense, vinifera culture is the past and hybrids are the future. If we want to have a future, there's my enthusiastic,

[00:18:09] Craig Macmillan: Well, I'd like you to expand a little bit more on that. 'cause we we have a group of hybrids that are well known or are commonly used. I've, I've been hearing about Marquette a lot more, um, As having a lot of potential WW. What does that future potentially look like and what are some things that would have to happen for that potential to be realized?

[00:18:31] Adam Huss: So we have invested, you know, millions of dollars in time and energy and even policy into developing, , the chemicals that we now use to support our, viticulture. And to make it possible in places like Virginia, where, you know, they're developing a whole wine industry there around vinifira in a climate that is, you know, like I said, that was the climate that like Thomas Jefferson failed for and everyone else for hundreds of years failed to grow it there.

[00:18:59] If we invested that same amount of time and energy and money into breeding programs and into. Research for the kinds of things that we're now discovering, like DNA markers so that we can have DNA marker assisted breeding. So you're, you're speeding up the breeding process by sometimes two, three years.

[00:19:19] Which is, which is significant in a process that can take, you know, 10 to 20 years that any, any little bit helps. So that kinda stuff and just more of it, more private breeders, making it more valuable for private breeders. I always think it's really interesting that like billionaires would rather just do another sort of like cult.

[00:19:39] Ego, Napa cab investment, you know, rather than like breed their own personal variety of grape that nobody else could have. I mean, I'm not recommending that, but like, to me that seems really interesting as an idea. You could just have your own proprietary grape variety if you wanted to, you know, but nobody's thinking that way.

[00:19:58] But I would say breeding, putting our, our time and energy into breeding not new varieties is, . Really important and, and working with the ones that are already there, I mean. The only reason California's so such strangers to them is because it's so easy to grow here. You know, we're relatively speaking and I get that.

[00:20:15] I mean, you know, people like what they like and, and change is hard and market conditions are what they are. But I think we're at a point where. Marking conditions are changed. Like I said, you know, this young couple I was just talking to don't, don't have never even heard the word foxy. And so I think there's a lot more openness to just what's in the glass. Now.

[00:20:35] Craig Macmillan: So some. Of it's messaging. If we can have wines that people can taste and do it in a context that's new to them. So there may be an opportunity here with newer wine drinkers or younger wine drinkers potentially, is what it sounds like to me.

[00:20:48] Adam Huss: Yeah, and I. I mean, some of this is also realizing all the different ways that hybrids are already being used and could be used. Like, you know, we know you mentioned Pierce's disease. Pierce's disease is this disease that's endemic to California and is heading north. I mean, it's really on the threshold of all of the major wine regions of, of California.

[00:21:11] And the only ways . To stop it without hybrids, without resistant hybrids are, are pretty intense. You know, it's like eliminating habitat through, , basically creating a sterile medium of your vineyard and then spraying with insecticides, you know some, sometimes pretty intense insecticides.

[00:21:29] The alternative though is there are now multiple varieties of grapes that are. Resistant to them that are tolerant to it so they, they can carry the bacteria, but it won't affect the health of the vine. Those were bred, some of them here, right here in California at uc Davis. And yet if you go to the University of California Agricultural Network Resources page that, you know, kind of handles all the IPM for California, sort of like the resource.

[00:21:56] And if you read about Pierce's disease, it makes zero mention of using tolerant. Varieties as a management strategy. And it makes no mention that there are even are tolerant varieties to Pierce's disease as a management strategy. So just that kind of stuff is the shift that has to happen. 'cause it just shows how vinifera centric our entire industry is, like from the top down, even when there are these great strategies that you can use and start implementing to combat these things, ecologically versus chemically.

[00:22:25] They're not there, you know, they're not being mentioned. So just little things like that would go a long way. Also, you know, I mean, one of my fun little facts is like. There are already hybrids being used significantly, like probably everybody on who's listening to this has, if you've bought a bottle of wine at a grocery store that was under 20 bucks, you've probably drunk hybrids because 10,000 acres of ruby red is grown in California to make mega purple and mega purples. Pretty much in every, like, you know, mass produced under $20 bottle of wine and it's got esra, Vitus, esra in it. So you've probably been drinking hybrids and not even known about it.

[00:23:04] In terms of these Andy Walker hybrids, I do have a little that which were bred for Pierce's disease resistance. I also have kind of a fun story in that I, as you know, like we've, we've both talked to Adam Tolmach, who replanted a whole block that he lost to Pierce's disease with these hybrid varieties, and these are designed specifically to retain a lot of vinifira characteristics. They're like 97% back crossed to be. vinifira and 3% with Vitus, Arizona to have that Pierce's disease resistant specifically. So they don't have a lot of the other benefits that like a higher percentage of North American native varieties would have. Like they, they're still susceptible to powdery mildew and other mildew pretty, pretty intensely,

[00:23:44] but just in terms of flavor for anybody who's out there. So I've, I've barrel tasted with Adam. Tasted each of those varieties individually out a barrel. And then we went to his tasting room and tried all of his wines and, and got to, and then he, instead of keeping, he has two red hybrid varieties, two white hybrid varieties, and he blends them and makes a, you know, a, a red blend and a white blend that he calls a state red and state white.

[00:24:09] And we went to his tasting room and he makes beautiful wine. All of his wines are great, but no joke. Everybody in my party. Preferred the hybrids to like all of his pinots or raw chardonnay, I mean, I have no idea why. I mean, but, and that's just anecdotal, obviously nothing scientific, but the very least I can say the, the flavors are exciting and delicious.

[00:24:29] Right.

[00:24:30] Craig Macmillan: If you can get them in front of the consumer,

[00:24:33] Adam Huss: Yeah.

[00:24:33] Craig Macmillan: the key. That's really the key.

[00:24:35] Adam Huss: Right, right,

[00:24:36] Craig Macmillan: And for, your own wine making. Are you making wine from hybrids for yourself?

[00:24:40] Adam Huss: Not yet just 'cause there are, there just aren't any in California very much, you know, I mean, it's like little patches here and little patches there. And the people that have them are using them for themself, you know, for their own growing. They've grown them specifically you know, Camus has planted some of these Andy Walker hybrids along their riparian corridors to prevent Pierce's disease.

[00:24:58] Those varieties specifically are being used. I don't know if they're blending those in. With like their cab or whatever. I honestly think they could, but I don't know if they are. They're probably, I dunno what they're doing with them, but I do grow them here in Los Angeles and I'm, but they're, you know, it's like I'm trying out a bunch of different things, partly just to see how they do, because, you know, they haven't been grown here.

[00:25:21] They were developed for colder, wetter climates and so, you know what, how will they grow here in Los Angeles? There's a lot of unanswered questions for some of these.

[00:25:30] Craig Macmillan: You and I were chatting before the interview and you have a, a new project that you're very. Excited about tell us a little bit about that, because I thought that was pretty cool.

[00:25:39] Adam Huss: Yeah. Thanks. So this past summer, my wife and I finalized the acquisition of this farm in upstate New York that I'm going to develop into a. Married Vine Vida Forestry Demonstration and Research Project. And, and married vines, essentially vines growing with living trees.

[00:26:02] But the best way to think about it is if you know the three Sisters of Agriculture, the corn, beans and squash idea, where you plant these. This guild of, of a Polyculture guild, and they have these symbiotic stacking benefits and productivity. This is what a married vine polyculture is for perennial agriculture. And so I don't just see it as vine and tree, but also vine and tree, and then a ground cover and or small shrubs or things like that that are also perennials planted in a guild together to create these stacking benefits and productivity.

[00:26:35] Multiple productivity layers as well as making it a grable system because the vines will be up in trees and and we're gonna call it the Beyond Organic Wine Forest Farm.

[00:26:47] Craig Macmillan: So gimme some more detail on this. So like, what are the other plants that are in the forest and how are the vines, what's the spacing like? How, how many trees per vine or vine per tree?

[00:27:01] How is the vine trellis? Um, I just, I'm really curious about this idea because this goes back to very, very ancient times.

[00:27:09] Adam Huss: Yes. Yeah, yeah,

[00:27:09] Craig Macmillan: Uh, that I've read about. I've never seen evidence of it, but I have been told that going back to like Roman times, they would plant grapevines, interplant with things like olives,

[00:27:18] Adam Huss: yeah, yeah. Yeah. And

[00:27:20] Craig Macmillan: use the olive as a trails.

[00:27:22] I mean, is this the, is this the same kind of concept?

[00:27:24] Adam Huss: You can see some of this still in Italy. So even pre roam the Etruscan times is what the oldest versions of this that are still visible in Campania, just north of Napoli, I think is the largest married vine system that is still in production. And I think it's about, it might be about 34 hectares of this variety where they have elm trees. That are really tall, full sized elm trees.

[00:27:51] And then between them they sort of have wires or ropes between the trees and the vines grow up like up 15 meters. Like it's crazy. Like the guys that harvest this, they have like specially designed ladders that are built for their stance so that they can like lock into these 18 meter ladders and be up there like with a little pulley and a bucket, and they're lowering grapes down from way up in the end.

[00:28:14] And you get. So many cool things about that, you know, the, the ripeness and the PHS of the grapes change, the higher you go up in that system. , the thinking is they might have even been used to like. Just inhibit invading armies because , it's like a wall of vines and trees that create like almost a perimeter thing.

[00:28:33] That that's also how they're being used in Portugal, they are sort of like if you have a little parcel of land, you use trees and vines to create like a living fence keep your domestic animals inside. And animals that might eat them outside and protect, you know, from theft and things like that.

[00:28:51] Keep all your crops in a little clo, like a little controlled area. There are old systems where. They're more like feto systems where they were using maple trees and just pollarding them at, at about head height. And every year, every year or two, they would come in and clip off all the new growth and feed it to the livestock.

[00:29:10] And meanwhile, the vines were festooned between the, the maple trees is like, you know, just like a garland of, of grapevine. So there's a lot of different things. And what I wanna do is trial several of them. One of the most. Interesting ones that I just saw in whales uses living willows, where you literally just stick a willow slip in the ground, bend it over to the next one that's about a meter and a half away and attach it.

[00:29:35] And so you have these arched willow branches that grow once you stick 'em in the ground. They start growing roots and they create like a head high trellis, like a elevated trellis system, and you plant vines in them. And, and it literally looks just like. Like a row of grapevines that you would find here, except the, the trellis is alive and there's no wires and, and you prune the tree when you prune the vine in the winter, you know?

[00:29:58] And Willow, I, I don't know if you know, but the, the other interesting thing about that is like willow has been used historically that the salicylic acid is known. Obviously that's aspirin and stuff like that. That's where we get, you know, one of our oldest like pain relievers and things like that.

[00:30:12] But. It's used in biodynamic preps as well as an antifungal. And so there's some thought that like this system could be really beneficial to the vines growing with those. Specifically for that, like for antifungal properties or just creating a, you know, showering the vines with this, this salicylic acid thing that will help them grow and have health throughout the season without, with, again, reduced need for sprays of anything.

[00:30:37] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, and that was why I brought it up is because there's the idea of working with the natural ecology of what's in the germ plasm of native plants. I. Mixing with an import plant.

[00:30:51] And then there's the other way of looking at it and saying, well, what, what about recreating the conditions under which this plant that has evolved in the first place? And I, I just think that there's really fascinating concept. It's really intriguing to me.

[00:31:05] yeah. And there's so many different ways you could do it, and that's why it's interested in what you're planning on doing, because there's obviously a lot of ways you could do it.

[00:31:11] Adam Huss: Yeah, I wanna experiment with several. Like you said, the, the soil benefits are incredible potentials. And then when you're also thinking about what do I do besides just vines and trees, and I mean, the other thing is like. How does it make the wine taste? Like if you plant a vine with an apple tree or a, a black locust tree, or a honey locust tree, or a, or a mulberry tree, like, does, is the vine happier with one of those trees?

[00:31:35] You know what I mean? Does it, does it, you know, and if it is, does that make the wine taste better at the end of the day? All these are really fun questions for me. That's why I'm really excited to do it. But also like what are the benefits in terms of, you know, the health of the vine, the health of the tree?

[00:31:50] Do they are, is there symbiotic elements? It seems like they would, I, I think a lot about what kind of mycorrhizal connections and associations the trees have, because we vines have our Arbuscular connections. And so if you plant them with a tree that has similar connections, they might actually have a symbiotic benefit.

[00:32:07] They might increase that soil network even further. And then if you're planting shrubs like blueberries or flowers, you know, perennial flowers or Forbes and things like that, that could either be grazed or could be gathered or could be another crop even for you, or it could be a protective thing.

[00:32:22] There are things like indigo that you might plant because. Deer don't like it. So you might want that growing around the base of your vine tree thing while it's young, because it will prevent the deer from grazing down your baby vines and trees, you know? And so there's just a, a myriad ways of thinking about these guilds that you can do.

[00:32:39] Obviously these are, I. Yeah, they're, they're different. If I was doing it in California, if I was in California, I would be thinking more about olives and pomegranates and figs and things like that, you know, like there's a lot less water for growing trees here, so depending on where you are, unless you're on the coast.

[00:32:55] Craig Macmillan: Are you planning on using hybrids in your project?

[00:32:59] Adam Huss: Yeah. I don't know how I would do it any other way. Yeah, it's, definitely a climate that. If you try to grow ra, like you're just asking for trouble. And, and just, you know, because of my approach is so ecological, like I will attempt to be as minimal inputs as possible is the other way I look at it.

[00:33:20] You know, try to just imitate what's happening around to, to see what that landscape wants to do and then how it. Maintains its health and resilience and maybe, and, and I mean, my, my ideal is to spray not at all. But you know, with not a dogma about that. If I see an issue or if I think like I'm building up these pathogen loads in the vineyard, maybe I'll spray once a year, even if they seem like they're doing okay.

[00:33:47] You know, I'm not like dogmatic about nose spray, but I, it's a, it's a fun ideal to reach for. And I, you know, I think potentially with. Some of the symbiotic benefits of these systems that could be achievable with with the right hybrids. You know, I mean, again, I don't wanna generalize about hybrids because you have the Andy Walker hybrids on the one end, which you have to treat just like vinifira in terms of the spray program.

[00:34:10] And then on the other hand, you have something like Petite Pearl or Norton, which is like in many cases is almost like a bulletproof. Grape, you know, and in California specifically, it would be like insanely. And then you have things right down the middle. Things like tranet that you know, is basically like, I could blind taste you on Tranet and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and gewurztraminer .

[00:34:31] But it's more cold, hearty, it has a little more disease resistance. Gives you a just a little bit, a little bit more of a benefit while still getting flavors that are familiar to you. If you like those flavors.

[00:34:43] Craig Macmillan: Is there one thing that you would tell growers on this topic? One takeaway.

[00:34:48] Adam Huss: Great question. I think give hybrids the same allowance that you give Vinifera. I. We all know there's a huge diversity of Vin Nira from Petite Ough to Riesling. And not everyone is right for every wine drinker and not all of them per perform the same in the vineyard. And, and you know, and we tolerate a lot of.

[00:35:12] Frailty and a lot of feebleness in our veneer vines. We, we do a lot of care. We do a lot of like, you know, handholding for our veneer vines when necessary. If we extended the same courtesy to hybrids in terms of understanding and willingness to work with them. I think like that would just go a really long way too.

[00:35:33] And I think we'd be surprised to find , they're a lot less handholding than, than Venire generally speaking. I. But also just try some. I think a lot of the prejudice comes from just not being exposed to them right now. You know, if you, if you think, if you're thinking negative thoughts about hybrids, get out there and drink some, you probably just haven't had enough yet.

[00:35:51] And if you don't like the first one, you know, how many bad Cabernets have you had? I mean, if, if I had stopped drinking vinifira, I

[00:35:59] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. If I judged every wine by the first wine that I tasted, that's probably not a very,

[00:36:06] Adam Huss: right.

[00:36:07] Craig Macmillan: good education there,

[00:36:08] Adam Huss: Prevented me from exploring further, I would've missed out on some of the more profound taste experiences of my life if I'd let that, you know, guide my, you know, my thinking about it. So yeah, I think it's like anything with prejudice, once you get beyond it, it kind of, you see how silly it is, man.

[00:36:25] It's, it's like so freeing and, and there's a whole world to explore out there. And like I said, I really think they're the future. Like if we wanna have a future, . We can only cling to the past for so long until it just becomes untenable.

[00:36:38] Craig Macmillan: Right. Where can people find out more about you?

[00:36:42] Adam Huss: So beyondorganicwine.com is the, the website for me. The email associate with that is connect@organicwinepodcast.com.

[00:36:53] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today has been Adam Huss. He is the host of the Beyond Organic Podcast and is the co-owner of Centralas Wines in Los Angeles.

[00:37:01] Thank you so much. This has been a really fascinating conversation and I'd love to connect with you at some point, talk more about. Out this, thanks for being on the podcast

[00:37:08] Adam Huss: Thank you so much, Craig. Appreciate it.

[00:37:13] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by VineQuest. A Viticultural consulting firm based in Paso Robles, California, offering expert services in sustainable farming, vineyard development, and pest management. With over 30 years of experience, they provide tailored solutions to enhance vineyard productivity and sustainability for wineries and agribusinesses across California.

[00:37:38] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Adam. His wine, brand, Centralis plus sustainable wine growing podcast episodes on this topic, 135 Cold hardiness of grapes 217. Combating climate chaos with adaptive wine, grape varieties, and 227. Andy Walker's Pierce's Disease resistant grapes are a success at Ojai Vineyard.

[00:38:04] If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org.

[00:38:19] Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team.

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