“Each teaspoon of dirt is teeming with millions and millions of bacteria, fungi and other microbes,” says Sam Kaplan, winemaker of Arkenstone Vineyards in Napa Valley, which has been organically farmed on Howell Mountain’s volcanic soils since the winery’s inception in 1988.
Indeed, no matter where you are, if you reach down and scoop up a handful of earth, you’re not just holding dirt. You have in the palm of your hand a vast collection of microscopic organisms.
These microbes, particularly fungi, made it possible for plants to evolve to inhabit a once inhospitable Earth some 500 million years ago. Fast forward to today, and they still play a vital role in plant life. One “we’ve only just begun to understand,” says David Montgomery, professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington and author of several books like What Your Food Ate and Dirt.
How many times have you heard a wine professional wax poetic about a vineyard’s soil? But how do the vines, and subsequently the grapes, actually reap those supposed benefits? Especially when vines are grown in volcanic soils, which typically have very little organic matter and nutrients that are still locked away in rocks.
Yet, volcanic soils manage to produce some of the most coveted wines in the world. Emerging science would suggest that the microbes toiling away under the surface make it possible.
Spores (shown in blue) and hyphae (shown in green) of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis. / Image Courtesy of Vasileios Kokkoris
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
