Moth forces wine country's secret into the open

[Xipe Totec]

Source: Associated Press



FRESNO, Calif. – One of the dirty secrets of California's wine country is now on everyone's lips.

Somehow a voracious grape-eating moth has found its way nonstop from Europe to the heart of the Napa Valley, the land of three-figure cabernet. With valuable fruit at risk, the region's fast and loose play with federal agriculture quarantine laws is getting new scrutiny from investigators and researchers.

Suitcase smuggling is the winked-at act of sneaking in cane cuttings to clone vines from France's premier vineyards, hoping to replicate success. Vintners say it helped build a handful of exceptional vineyards in the 1980s when U.S. plant choices were limited and import testing took seven years.

As California clamps a quarantine across the heart of Napa Valley and farmers ready their pesticides, nobody is winking anymore. A new Napa reality is setting in_ that lax attitudes invite costly invasions of new pests that can threaten the country's most expensive and economically productive farmland.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100327/ap_on_bi_ge/us_grape_moth_mystery

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It is the old "ya wanna play, ya gotta pay" law.

[loudsue]

2. That's a real problem: Washington ususally won't bail out California.

Cleanness envy.

[Hoopla Phil]

3. Bring on the Texas wines!!!

[Xipe Totec]

4. Open up the sluice gates at both ends!

:evilgrin:

[Xenotime]

9. Isn't that an oxymoran?

[malaise]

5. So much for no regulations and small government

The greedy never learn.

[Quantess]

6. Invasive French moths.

Interesting.

[Adsos Letter]

7. Well, this should get interesting...

My 30+ years working as a painter in the Napa Valley usually meant driving various lengths of it on a daily basis; and for much of that time the growers were incurring the expense of replacing whole vineyards because of Philloxera infestation...I wonder how this will impact that economy.

[Javaman]

8. Personally, I welcome our new drunken moth overlords. nt