Vines and grapes

Cultivated since ancient times, the vine is one of the plants that have shaped human history, like wheat, the olive tree or the potato. Vines are an integral part of culture and philosophy, maintaining specific relationships with religions and enriching philosophical currents. It is also one of the most ‘flexible’ plants, the most biologically ‘malleable’, almost opportunistic, hence the thousands of different grape varieties that humankind has

created from Vitis vinifera, and hence the most unlikely places on the planet where vines grow, having conquered new countries devoted to wine. Wine tends to steal the show leaving vines and grapes in its shadows. This book puts vines and grapes back into the limelight, not forgetting wine.