The wine louse, phylloxera, is a tiny insect – an aphid, to be precise – that lives in and eats the roots of grapevines. It travels by stealth – on the soles of shoes, by crawling from vine to vine and even on the breeze.
Despite its size, phylloxera can wreak havoc. Between the late 1860s and 1890s, the pest almost completely wiped out Europe’s vineyards. Countless winemakers lost their livelihood. In an effort to save their crops they tried everything from potions and...
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