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Why do Clones Matter?
We always start our tours out in the vineyard, at Goosecross, and we quite often mention that Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, has our nine and a half acre estate vineyard divided into 11 different sections. This is a Cabernet-dominated vineyard, but since we grow 3 other Bordeaux varieties on the property, there’s an obvious division into four and then I explain that the other sections are due to differences in spacing, rootstock, hybrid and clone. Almost inevitably the next question is “what the heck is a clone?”
The word clone tends to bring to mind clinical images of Petri dishes and labs and all the ethical questions that came up with the advent of Dolly the sheep. But, when it comes to grapes, new clones are purely an act of nature and the science involved is in studying them and learning how to identify them accurately.
What is a clone?
First of all, what’s a clone? Evidently, everything that grows, including us humans, is subject to natural and spontaneous genetic change, which we call mutation, another kind of scary term. But, mutation is just part of nature. The freedictionary.com defines it as “A change of the DNA sequence within a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not found in the parental type.”
As more time passes, the potential for mutation increases. For instance, Pinot Noir is a very old wine grape and clonal selection is a topic of intense interest and discussion among winemakers. Cabernet Sauvignon has only been around since the late 1700s and, though there are various clones available, clonal selection doesn’t generate nearly as much debate. We also know that some varieties, like Pinot Noir, tend to mutate more easily than others. What it means is that if you have a very old Pinot Noir vineyard, it could be that you have a few different versions of the variety growing out there by now. You’d have to study the individual vines very closely to know.
So, we know that there are variations within a number of varieties available. Our job is to figure out which versions we prefer and replicate them. This is where it starts to become scientific, which is just a matter of people paying very close attention.
This has been done on a comparatively casual basis throughout history, meaning that the grower would notice that some of the vines in his acreage performed better than others and he would take cuttings from those preferred vines to propagate new ones.
