New grapes for the Mosel? Meet the people breeding wine's future.

A wet harvest and a big question

Jamie opens in the Mosel at harvest after a rainy season of heavy disease pressure and lost yields. You cannot breed a vine that resists hail or frost, he says, but you can breed one that resists fungal disease. The obstacle is that people are deeply attached to the varieties grown for centuries.

He makes a pointed case: if sustainable farming means farming the same way for hundreds of years, then today's viticulture, organic included, is not there yet, because of how much spraying it takes.

PIWI varieties, he explains, are grapes bred to resist fungal diseases, so they need far fewer sprays. Some, like Regent and Cabernet Blanc, have been around for years, but most are new, which raises practical questions: how should they be made into wine, and will drinkers accept unfamiliar names on the shelf? The episode follows the chain from vineyard to lab to breeder to nursery to find answers.

Harvest with Jan Matthias Klein

In Kröv, Jamie joins Jan Matthias Klein of Staffelter Hof in his Paradies vineyard. Jan's father planted the resistant variety Regent around 25 years ago, Jan turned the farm organic in 2012 and began making natural wine in 2014, and since 2020 he has planted more than three hectares of PIWI varieties. For a natural winemaker, he explains, low intervention in the cellar should match low intervention among the vines.

They pick Satin Noir, a Valentin Blattner cross with Cabernet Sauvignon in its family, with small berries, thick skins and deep color. Jan says he sprays far less, gets a crop sooner after planting, and has more consistent yields. The thick skins also cope better with strong sun, and he sees the varieties as a way to survive climate change.

Research at the Neustadt wine campus

At the wine campus in Neustadt, Dr. Ulrich Fischer shares results from the three-year VitiFIT research program. PIWI wines were made in several styles, from early harvest to skin contact and oak, and compared with classic varieties grown in the same vineyard and made by the same winemaker, then served to winemakers and consumers in three countries.

Jamie also sees hundreds of tiny fermentations in glass demijohns, some from just a few bunches of brand-new crosses. The work matters, Ulrich explains, because winemakers have little experience with these grapes, and consumers in different countries prefer different styles.

The breeder and the nursery

The heart of the film is time with Valentin Blattner, often called the father of modern resistant varieties. He shows Jamie a classic vineyard sprayed 15 times and still ruined by mildew, then an unsprayed plot of numbered seedlings that look and taste like Riesling. He describes making about a million seeds and keeping only those that combine resistance with quality, always crossing back to a classic variety to keep its flavor.

At Rebschule Freytag, Volker Freytag explains how each seedling is genetically checked for resistance genes to powdery and downy mildew, then propagated, grafted and sorted. PIWIs now make up 60% of the young vines the nursery produces. A vineyard lasts 30 to 40 years, he notes, so a grower's choice has to be right.

Tasting the new wave

Back in Kröv, Jamie plants a Sauvignac vine in the Paradies vineyard and tastes the same variety still fermenting in tank. He then compares two vintages of Jan's Little Bastards white blend, one without PIWIs and one with four of them blended in.

Do we need new grape varieties, or can the classics carry on? Watch the episode to hear the case from the people doing the work and Jamie's own verdict.

Go furtherTo explore the estates, vineyards and wines of the Mosel and Germany further, the wein.plus wine guide is a great resource.