Inside VCR, the Italian nursery that supplys a quarter of the world's vines

It’s always fascinating to visit a winery to see where, how, and by whom your favourite wines are made.

Sometimes an estate will be eagerly anticipating the first wines from a new vineyard. Ask where those young vines come from, and chances are the answer will be a proud ‘Rauscedo’.

With around 60% of Italy’s vines and a quarter of those growing globally originating here, VCR is by far the world’s largest vine supplier.

The 430 wine grape clones VCR works with represent 90 major world varieties, sold in 38 countries across five continents.

‘Nowadays we produce around 90 million grafted vines each year,’ explains Alessandro Leon, VCR president and one of 200 member growers.

Roots

The nursery cooperative was founded in 1933 to organise the growing local trade in vine grafting, which began 15 years earlier thanks to skills taught by a locally based army officer.

European wineries were still reeling from the Phylloxera epidemic, and replanting was underway with vulnerable European Vitis vinifera varieties grafted onto naturally resistant American rootstocks.

Grafting takes place between February and March. After protective paraffin waxing and a few months of growth at member nurseries, each vine is checked manually by one of the 1,300-strong team during an all-important winter selection process, ensuring only perfectly grafted, healthy plants are sold.

Around 78% pass the test.

The laboratory

For the past 60 years, VCR has been a major player in vine research. Alongside members’ nurseries, VCR has 22ha of experimental vineyards and various plots across Italy and beyond.

Its contemporary, alpine-style research centre houses eight futuristic laboratories where around 10,000 genotypes (grown from individual seeds) are trialled annually.

Lab staff undertake the meticulous job of isolating seeds, genome testing, and micropropagation.

The tiny proportion selected for aromatic quality, productivity, or disease resistance may eventually become registered clones.

‘It gets busy’

Each year, VCR carries out roughly 700 microvinifications in small steel vats and glass demijohns.

‘It gets busy,’ says winemaker Massimo De Candido, ‘but I’d find working with regular-sized equipment a challenge after 20 years of microvinifications here.’

Clients can configure orders online from over 4,000 variety-rootstock combinations, but most prefer to discuss options and taste the results from different clones.

VCR’s tasting room boasts a mind-boggling archive of bottles arranged by clone codes and varieties.

‘We have, for example, 15 Merlot clones,’ points out Elisa De Luca, head of the research centre.

‘Many producers choose to plant a mix of clones of the same variety to mitigate the risks of increasingly unpredictable weather.’

Pioneering PIWIs

Exciting ongoing research involves new resistant varieties, or ‘PIWIs’ – hybrids created by crossing traditional European Vitis vinifera with naturally disease-resistant American or Asian vines.

These allow for reduced vineyard intervention and mitigate climate change risks.

VCR holds exclusive rights to 14 PIWI varieties, including Pinot Iskra, Sauvignon Nepis, and Merlot Khorus, developed with Udine University.

Two of VCR’s own resistant varieties derived from Glera (the Prosecco grape) will soon be released, with more due in 2027, followed by resistant versions of Grenache and Chardonnay.

While the EU approved PIWIs for denomination wines in 2021 and regions like Champagne have altered protocols to allow small percentages, Italy has been slow to follow suit.

Some Italian regions authorise PIWI cultivation, but no regulatory changes have been approved to include them in DOC/DOCG wines.