This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science. I'm Steve Mursky.

In general public if you look at the broad numbers, it's like 60% of vineyards around the world in the new world have been planted with just five or six varieties of grapes in the last 10 or 20 years.

From the Australians to New Zealand to all of California.

Science journalist Kevin Bigos, the author of the new book

Tasting the Past, The Science of Flavor and the Search for the Origins of Wine.

He spoke in June at Aster Wines and Spirits in Manhattan.

At one point he talked about disease threats to wine grapes.

So the scientists are starting to get really concerned that this is setting up a perfect scenario for a great

pandemic, which would seem a little far-fetched, except we all know that grapes are being

reproduced by cuttings, you know, not by seed, you know, to keep the flavor qualities.

What that means is they haven't been evolving for hundreds or thousands of years.

You know, Pino is 2,000 years old, which is kind of the general estimate.

Since we've been cloning it to keep the flavors for roughly 2,000 years, all the insects and pathogens and mildewes that attack grape vines have been evolving

that whole time.

They always figure out new ways to attack the grape vines, wine grape researchers at the leading

institutions, they're saying, look, you're doing the exact Wine grape researchers at the leading institutions.

They're saying, look, you're doing the exact same thing

they did during the Irish potato family,

which was plant the same variety of potato all over Ireland,

propagate it just from buds, you know, from the shoots coming out of old potatoes,

and then when, you know, a fungus hit it, you know, it wipes out the whole population.

So these are not just hypotheticals.

...