Category: Fruits and nuts

Posted on

Wine from the ashes

I’ve been following the vineyards of Pompeii for quite a while, it turns out. Maybe because archaeology and wine are two of my favourite things. As part of our anniversary celebrations, here’s a recap of the story, as it has unfolded on the blog over the past ten years and more. It was prompted by a recent piece by renowned wine writer Jancis Robinson. It’s unfortunately paywalled, but I found another source.

In 2013, I wrote about the vines I encountered growing among the ruins, planted where archaeologists had found evidence of ancient vineyards: casts of vine roots and the supports on which they had grown. The idea was to reconstruct not just a Roman vineyard, but something of the agricultural landscape that disappeared when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.

By 2016, the experiment had progressed from vines to wine, and we duly Nibbled about it. The Mastroberardino winery was using archaeological evidence, ancient texts and surviving local grape varieties to recreate aspects of Pompeian viticulture. Some of the varieties thought to have been grown in antiquity were still being cultivated around Vesuvius. The reconstructed vineyards were producing wine too, although the winemaking was sensibly not being reconstructed quite as faithfully as the viticulture.

By 2020, the vineyards had become part of the experience of Pompeii itself, with harvesting and winemaking incorporated into the archaeological site’s interpretation of its ancient gardens and agriculture.

And now, in 2026, the project is entering a new phase. A new partnership aims to expand vineyard production within Pompeii, with around 30,000 bottles a year envisaged. The scale is very different from the experimental 1,500 bottles of a decade ago, but the basic idea remains: use archaeology, surviving agricultural biodiversity and modern expertise to recover something of Pompeii’s lost viticultural heritage.

Pompeii died two thousand years ago. It’s rather wonderful that its vineyards have come back to life.

Posted on

Nibbles: African food systems, Uganda cassava, Uganda pastoralists, Butternut conservation, Seed transfer zones webinar, Frozen Zoo, India fish genebank

  1. Swapping maize for indigenous crops won’t fix African food systems designed around markets and policies that still favour a narrow range of crops.
  2. Cassava is both a food security fallback and a commercial crop in Uganda, but disease, climate change and declining diversity make its conservation an increasingly urgent form of insurance. But what about the markets and policies?
  3. When livestock and crops fail, Ugandan pastoralists draw on wild plants for food, underlining how much food-system resilience still sits outside the formal agricultural system, with its markets and policies.
  4. The Morton Arboretum is using living collections and genetic research to help the threatened butternut tree cope with changing conditions.
  5. Webinar discusses global approaches to seed provenancing and transfer zones, useful for anyone who wants to move native plants without moving the wrong genes. Butternut very interested.
  6. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo preserves genetic material of plant and animal species that may disappear, from DNA to cells to organisms. Butternut volunteers.
  7. New Indian facility combines ex situ fish conservation with community aquaculture. Good model for much of the above?
Posted on

Brainfood: Nutrition edition

Posted on

Nibbles: Historical photos, Belgian pears, Miombo fruits, Kenya seed treble, Nepal landraces, Women

  1. Haga Hideo’s 1950s photos of Fukushima farming rituals are now being used to revive them: ex situ conservation, but for culture.
  2. Long before photography, or “pre‑breeding” was a buzzword, Belgian pomologist Jean‑Baptiste Van Mons was running massive pear selection trials and gifting us Beurré Bosc and Doyenné Boussock.
  3. As Southern Africa’s miombo woodlands shrinks, scientists are cloning wild trees so the fruit — and food security — outlive the forest. Now for the pre-breeding.
  4. Greenpeace Africa’s Seed Project makes the case for indigenous seeds as a route to farmer independence. And you can help.
  5. And oh so coincidentally, a network of community seed banks in Kenya is rescuing indigenous seeds so the diversity is still around when opportunity (or crisis) knocks.
  6. Also in Kenya, the national genebank’s collectors are racing to secure opportunity crops.
  7. Nepal’s indigenous crops and landraces are at the same time more needed than ever, and under threat. So, much like in Kenya.
  8. The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT says women are at the center of sustainable food systems; the fine print adds: “as they have always been.”
Posted on

Nibbles: China genebank, China blueberries, PhilRice, Italy olive genebank, GIAHS, Mangelwurzel, Papaw, Bean AI

  • China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
  • Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
  • Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
  • Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
  • FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
  • The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
  • Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
  • BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?