Meet the American who saved the Champagne industry: Missouri scientist Charles Valentine Riley

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Charles Valentine Riley was a Missouri scientist credited with saving the French wine industry from an invasive pest called phylloxera by grafting French vines to American roots.

Riley found splendor in creatures most people find repugnant.

Charles Valentine Riley studied both art and science and produced beautiful drawings of the plants and bugs he studied. From the Charles Valentine Riley Papers at the National Agricultural Library of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. "Some growers flooded their vineyards with seawater; others sprayed their vines with a vast array of chemicals or simply burned them. Nothing seemed to work." Hermannhoff Inn and Winery, Hermann, Missouri, a historic German settlement founded in 1837. Missouri boasted some of the world's best wineries in the 1800s, before losing the industry to Prohibition.Phylloxera were native to the United States — which is why American vines were resistant to their ravages.

"Finally, at an international congress on phylloxera held in Bordeaux in 1881, grafting Vitis vinifera on to American vines was accepted as the best solution," Phillips adds.Champagne suffered an unusually difficult fate during the Great French Wine Blight. The Nazis surrendered to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower at Supreme Allied Headquarters in Reims on May 8, 1945, marking the end ofBeneath the city sits a vast network of chalk and limestone caves, many dating back to Roman times, that enjoy a constant cool temperature and humidity. The caves today contain the world's supply of Champagne, aging amid dark and graceful isolation, with the domains of some of the world's most famous winemakers above them.

The French government chose to define and then protect Champagne under a system of Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée — a name of controlled origin. Further AOC protections were adopted by the European Union in the 1990s, creating a complex list of products that can be made only in their native region.

Charles Valentine Riley, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in London, was a renowned scientist on both sides of the Atlantic. From the Charles Valentine Riley Papers at the National Agricultural Library of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

 

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