The article is somewhat fuzzy on what Jerry is trying to do.
TV Munson was well known (I, of course, followed his work from the very start!!
) horticulturist
and breeder of grapevines. He primarily did two things:
1. Thoroughly catalogued the many native American grape varieties (Isabella/Concord/etc), primarily from the MidWest, and
2. Developed vinifera X American croses (Baco Noir/SeyvalBlanc/etc), so-called French-American hybrids. These were
direct producers that could withstand phylloxera on American soil and, hopefully, have some vinifera character in the wines.
In the phylloxera battle in France back in the 1860's, his contributions were two-fold:
1. Initially, he provided them with his French-American hybrids to see if they could make decent wine, and
2. When they realized they could grown vinifera in France if they grafted them onto phylloxera-resistant
native American rootstocks, he provided them with these rootstock materials.
It's not at all clear what Jerry's effort is:
1. Save many of the old American grape varieties that TVMunson catalogued, or
2. Save as many of TVMunson's French-American crosses he developed in his breeding program.
I think it's probably #1, but sourcing plant material from Denison, TX, where Munson did his breeding work suggests
it's #2. I don't know from the article.
Therein would be a very good wine article for some publication. Go to this community college in Denison and
find out exactly what they're doing there. I'd be very interested in that article, but probably noone else would.
And I'm not going to TX because I don't carry a sidearm.
And, no, I've not tasted the TerraVox wines.
Tom
