VALENCIENNES, FRANCE—The AFP reports that a 600-year-old grape seed recovered from a medieval waste pit in northern France is genetically identical to grapes used today to make pinot noir wine. A team of researchers led by Ludovic Orlando of the French National Center for Scientific Research sequenced the genomes of 54 grape seeds dating from about 2300 B.C. to the medieval period. The oldest grapes in the study were found to have come from wild vines. The scientists determined that early farmers began using clonal propagation techniques as early as 625 to 500 B.C., when domesticated grapevines were grown in southern France. Such techniques, including rooting cuttings and grafting on root stock, allowed these farmers to produce identical copies of parent plants. Laurent Bouby of the Institute of Evolutionary Science of Montpellier said that it is not clear if the medieval grape seed in question had been eaten or used to make wine. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. For more on ancient winemaking, go to "French Wine, Italian Vine."
