A 5 Minute Lesson in Hybrid Wine Grapes
There’s an excellent new video from Cornell University on how hybrid wine grapes are developed. Most of the breeding is done using a process that’s been around since at least the 19th century (no GMOs!.) But, as you’ll see, there is now a high tech aspect too.
The wine grapes being developed at Cornell (and The University of Minnesota) hold great promise for the Midwest. Some of the grapes you might have enjoyed locally that were created by Cornell include Chardonel, Valvin Muscat and Traminette. (Traminette was started at the University of Illinois before U of I cut back their grape breeding program and transferred the rights to Cornell.)
See: Grape Breeding Made Simple
