Leafroll hits the U.S.

Anyone who has been involved in SA wine for a while will tell you that one of the real difficulties with growing grapes in South Africa is the extent of the troublesome leaf roll virus problem.

Leaf Roll virus basically inhibits the vine's ability to ripen grapes properly. With red grapes, this tends to result in green, under-ripe flavours, flavours that can often correspond to high alcohol as the grower tries to leave the fruit on the vine longer in order to deal with the phenolic under-ripeness.

There isn't really a lot of good that can be said in favour of it, and a lot of energy is being expended in SA at the moment by producers looking to rid their vineyards of virus infected vines. It's an expensive and time consuming task, and certainly a problem that most could do without. At Dombeya we've just completed the replanting of around 2 hectares of prime vineyard land to Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet Franc after ripping out some badly virused Sauvignon Blanc.

It's interesting that leaf roll is starting to pop its head up in quite a few places around the globe. California has been dealing with the issue for some time, as has Hawkes Bay in New Zealand. Now comes the news that the emerging Finger Lakes region of New York has also found a high incidence of leaf roll virus in their vineyards and have initiated further research into the issue.

It goes without saying that the industry as a whole can do without any further drama's at this point in history. I'm sure that there will be plenty of SA producers interested to hear about the results of the research that is currently underway.


Click here to go to Dombeya Wines website.