It came over from America and began eating Europe from underneath.

Phylloxera is a tiny insect with expensive taste. It attacks vine roots, and when it arrived in Europe in the nineteenth century on imported American vines, Vitis vinifera had almost no defence against it.

The vine above ground simply began to decline.

Then it died.

Then the vine next to it died.

Winegrowers tried almost everything. Chemicals were poured into the soil. Vineyards were flooded where possible. There were committees, experiments and, inevitably, people insisting the whole thing was exaggerated.

The solution was mildly embarrassing.

American vines.

North American vine species had evolved alongside phylloxera and developed resistance to its attacks. So growers began grafting European Vitis vinifera — Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the rest — onto resistant American rootstocks.

The European wine remained European above ground.

Underneath, America was keeping it alive.

That is still how most of the world’s Vitis vinifera is grown today. Romanée-Conti, Montrachet, first-growth Bordeaux: some of Europe’s grandest names depend on roots whose ancestors came from the other side of the Atlantic.

There are exceptions. Santorini has famously preserved many old, ungrafted Assyrtiko vines, helped by conditions hostile to phylloxera. Sandy soils have protected other pockets of ungrafted vines around the world.

But they are exceptions.

Europe’s vineyards were saved by the same continent that brought them the problem. Wine history has a sense of humour.

Nobody thought to put that on the label.