Science, Vine and Wine in Modern France

Extent of the French Hybrid Empire

The continued spread of direct-production hybrids could not give complete satisfaction to their supporters without the intellectual pleasure of scientific approval of these vines. That approval was withheld, with the result that quarrels over direct producers in French viticulture did not end with the Congress of Lyon (1901) or even with the Congress of Angers (1907). In 1903 Gouy attacked Viala, who had just said bad things about hybrids in the Sicilian review Vitacoltura moderna: that no known hybrid had a high resistance to phylloxera and that the quality of hybrid grapes and their wine was low. The editor, Frederico Paulsen, had asked both Viala and Ravaz about growing direct-production hybrids in Sicily. Fortunately for the hybrid cause, the answers given by Ravaz were less negative and could be interpreted by Gouy as contradicting Viala's opinion. Ravaz's stock had risen in the hybrid camp since his apparent apostasy at the Congress of Lyon, much feted in hybrid circles. If scientific approval came at the expense of the Americanist cause, all the better for the hybrid cause.

A set of minor concessions by a leading spokesman of the Ecole de Montpellier did not mean that the official program of reconstitution of France's vineyards was greatly modified.