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Food: Lab-altered grapes uncork fears of 'Frankenwine'




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TITLE:  LAB-ALTERED GRAPES UNCORK FEARS OF 'FRANKENWINE'

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, USA

URL:    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0612080189dec08,1,3690649.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

DATE:   08.12.2006

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LAB-ALTERED GRAPES UNCORK FEARS OF 'FRANKENWINE'

STELLENBOSCH, South Africa -- The young chardonnay vines climbing from terra cotta pots in the Institute for Wine Biotechnology's greenhouse look like grapevines anywhere, vigorous and green.

But the carefully monitored plants, produced in the institute's spotless, state-of-the-art labs, carry a transgenic gene that researchers hope will one day lead to South African wine grapes that don't need spraying to resist fungal infection.

"The whole aim is to make wine more environmentally friendly and let farmers use less of these horrible chemicals," said Sarita Groenewald, a wine biotechnology research manager at the institute based at the University of Stellenbosch.

But the young vines, which the institute hopes to soon test in field trials, are at the center of a controversy in South Africa over the increasing use of genetically modified plants.

Much of Africa has resisted the introduction of genetically engineered food. Zambia bans even donations of genetically modified aid grain, and Angola, Zimbabwe and Malawi allow imports only if the grain has been milled first, to ensure it cannot be planted. Kenya, Nigeria and a handful of other African nations are studying genetically engineered crops but have not given approval for commercial use.

South Africa, on the other hand, has just 45 million people but in 2005 ranked 8th in the world in the use of the modified plants, behind only such giants as the United States, China, India and Brazil. Across the country, the use of engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has been steadily increasing.

Worries in wine country

A proposal to field test genetically engineered grapes, however, has raised new concerns, particularly in South Africa's 300-year-old wine country around Stellenbosch, an hour from Cape Town. In an industry as competitive, emotional and image-sensitive as winemaking, nobody wants to be the first to produce what one South African tabloid newspaper has termed "Frankenwine."

"Obviously a lot of people are scared. It goes to your reputation," said Desmond Binneman, an assistant tasting room manager at Simonsig, one of the dozens of wineries around Stellenbosch.

Simonsig was the first to make South Africa's version of champagne, and the winery's owners "are innovators," Binneman said. But "there's no point in making a wine if no one wants it," he said.

South Africa is not the first nation to move toward producing genetically modified wine. The U.S. has 51 trials of genetically modified grapes registered and other winemaking nations like Australia, Italy, France and Germany also are doing research, Groenewald said.

But South Africa's public approval process--release of genetically modified crops must be approved by a committee of representatives of six departments of the national government--has made it an industry focus and led to some unwanted early fallout.

Earlier this year buyers in the United Kingdom, one of South Africa's top export markets, and in Germany canceled orders for South African wine after hearing of the controversy, though genetically modified wines couldn't be commercially produced in South Africa for at least a decade even on the most optimistic timetable.

The Institute for Wine Biotechnology has received stacks of letters from wine lovers insisting they don't want to buy or drink engineered wines or urging researchers to take precautions in the field, such as removing the flowers from plants so bees can't spread the pollen--a suggestion that reveals a certain lack of understanding of basic biology about how grapes are produced.

The letters range from "very emotional to completely irrational to people just wanting more facts," Groenewald said.

South Africa's wine industry, which funds and supports the institute's research, also has concerns. In a public statement, it made clear that it "will not use GM organisms in the production of wine until such time as it is quite clear that this practice is internationally acceptable."

"You can't jump in with GM products if our trading partners don't want to buy them," said Paul Roux, a wine grape farmer at Vlottenburg Farm, near Stellenbosch.

"For us, the most important thing is to be competitive and make good wine," added Chris Williams, a winemaker at Meerlust, one of the region's oldest wineries. "Anything that obscures that is a step backward."

Simply crossbreeding to resolve problems with South African wine--alcohol content a bit too high, grapes bleached under the African sun, fungal infections in wet years--is tough, however. Efforts to cross strains to create fungal resistance, for instance, have created chardonnay grapes that no longer taste quite like chardonnay.

Genetic engineering gets around those problems--or at least scientists hope it will. Modified chardonnay and sultana grapevines--engineered with a simple marker gene rather than any active changes--have been growing in the university's greenhouse for four years now but have not yet set fruit because they are not subject to the cold winter nights and gradually rising spring temperatures needed to spur the process.

Can't mimic nature

"We can't mimic that in a glasshouse environment," Groenewald said. "We need to go to the field."

Researchers had hoped to plant 100 genetically modified and control plants in the university's test plot in November, with the fruit and flowers bagged to prevent pollen and seed dispersal and the whole field netted to keep out animals and birds. But the proposal didn't make it through South Africa's lengthy approval process in time, which means the earliest field testing could begin now is next November.

The institute, which is also studying ways to make white wines as heart-friendly as reds and to create sulfur-free natural wine preservatives, hopes to test the modified plants in the field for five years. If they grow and set fruit properly, researchers would start tests aimed at preparing fungal-resistant varieties for commercial sale.

"Our whole research program is need-driven. We ask the industry what they want," Groenewald said. South African winemakers have made clear they don't want to be the first to use the new technology, she admits, "but they say we'll be a close second [when someone else does]. So we'll be ready when the market's ready."

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