By Denman Moody
Around the same period of history that our Civil War was coming to a close, a tiny, almost microscopic louse (read, ugly little bug) was accidentally imported, probably from the eastern United States, to Europe. The native East Coast vines somehow had become immune to the parasite’s potential danger. However, once in Europe, it multiplied and spread to such an extent that the non-immune vinifera vines of Europe—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay, Riesling, etc.—were systematically devastated.
Although the nascent problem was noted in the early to mid-1860s, nobody had a clue for years what was causing the death of the vines. It was finally discovered that this louse, the phylloxera, attached itself to the roots of the vines and sucked out their life supply, thus killing them. And since the California vineyards were planted primarily with vinifera grapes brought over from Europe, they eventually began to suffer the same fate.
T.V. Munson, of Denison, Texas, was one of several men who sent hundreds of thousands of native U. S. rootstocks to Europe, where vinifera vines were grafted onto these immune rootstocks. Munson is recognized as one of the people who helped save France from the phylloxera. He was awarded the Chevalier du Merite Agricole of the Legion of Honor along with two other Americans—the first Americans to be so honored since Thomas Edison.
It is rumored that many of Munson’s cuttings, most of which were from east Texas, were used for grafting in the Champagne area. The next time someone remarks that there is only one real Champagne and that no other sparkling wine is competitive, you can respond, “Well of course that’s true now since so many of the vines there were grafted onto Texas (or U.S.) rootstocks!”
The last year I know of that top-quality pre-phylloxera Bordeaux was produced would be 1878, and I have had the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild from that vintage from a magnum. It looked and tasted like one of the great vintages of the 1920s, 1928 in particular.
I have been fortunate to drink numerous pre-phylloxera wines—perhaps 30. The oldest was Chateau Gruaud Larose 1819, tasted at a magnificent two-day affair in Fort Worth orchestrated by Dr. Marvin Overton, one of America’s great wine connoisseurs and collectors. The bottle was brought from the chateau where it had been recorked and refilled with more 1819 every 30 years or so for about 170 years. The wine showed good color with a light rim and barely a hint of oxidation. A most remarkable, very drinkable wine, it could easily pass for a wine 100 years younger. It had “astonishing preservation” according to David Peppercorn, M.W.
The greatest pre-phylloxera wine I’ve ever tasted, which is also my favorite wine of all time, is Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1870 (magnum) from the famous Glamis Castle cellar. When consumed in the early 1980s, it had a youthful appearance—still opaque—and was a colossus, drinking more like a 1945 on steroids. It was seemingly from another planet. Maybe it was, and when the aliens left, they took the infected rootstocks with them, zapped the phylloxera and are enjoying pre--phylloxera Lafite on Venus.
Alas, the debate about the differences between pre- and post-phylloxera wines is becoming moot. One thing that concerns me is that, sadly, I find no mention of T.V. Munson in many large tomes about wine, including the 1,087-page Oxford Companion to Wine, 1994, and the 365-page Companion to Wine, 1992. If you’re interested in this “Grape Man of Texas,” go to www.eakinpress.com, search for T.V. Munson, then click on “Texas Biographies,” or call 800-880-8642.
The T. V. Munson Memorial Vineyard and the T. V. Munson Viticulture Enology Center are located on the campus of Grayson County College, Denison, Texas, where degrees in viticulture and enology have been offered for the past 30 years. Contact Dr. Roy Renfro for information: renfror@grayson.edu or 903-463-8707 or www.grayson.edu.
