Morphometric comparison of current, Roman‐era and medievalVitisseeds from the north‐west of Spain

Abstract

Background and Aims: Vitis vinifera seeds from one Medieval and two Roman-era archaeological sites in Galicia (northwestern Spain) were morphologically compared to seeds of different cultivated varieties (V. vinifera subsp. sativa) in the same areas and with those of wild grapevines (V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris) from different parts of Spain and the French Basque Country. Methods and Results: The length and width at different points of each seed were measured and different relationships determined from these values for later comparison. Morphologically, the seeds from the Roman sites appeared to belong to both V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris and V. vinifera subsp. sativa. Those from the Medieval site were similar to present cultivars. Conclusions: The close relationships of certain currently cultivated varieties to some of the Roman samples indicate these varieties may be older than the others examined. Indeed, the seeds of the variety Albariño showed similar morphometric characteristics to the seeds found at both the Roman and Medieval sites. Since Albariño is traditionally cultivated in the same area as these sites, this variety may have been grown as long ago as Roman times. Significance of the Study: This work throws light on the origin and domestication of cultivated grapevine varieties during Roman and Medieval times.

Pervasive hybridization with local wild relatives in Western European grapevine varieties

“…Within the context of the Iberian Peninsula, we find additional support that hybridization was not a fairly recent event. A morphometrics study of grape pips from Northwestern Iberia archaeological sites grouped medieval and Roman pips close to the modern variety Alvarinho (PT)/ Albariño (SP) ( 68 ). This C wIB2 member is a hallmark variety for Vinhos Verdes wines and was suggested to be a first-generation migrant from sylvestris based on simple sequence repeat (SSR) data ( 33 ).…”

Plant Economy in the Westernmost Territory of the Roman State Through Waste: The Wet Site of O Areal (Vigo, Spain)

“…The O Areal site presents an assemblage of species with numerous parallels across Europe (Bakels and Jacomet 2003;Bosi et al 2020;Jacomet and Vandorpe 2011;Livarda 2011;Lodwick 2017;Vandorpe 2010). Within the Iberian Peninsula, similarities can be seen in and detected specimens very similar to seeds of the current grape variety 'Albariño' (Boso et al 2020). This might indicate a process of local domestication of wild subspecies (Boso et al 2020), or the introgression of wild V. sylvestris in the study region.…”

“…Within the Iberian Peninsula, similarities can be seen in and detected specimens very similar to seeds of the current grape variety 'Albariño' (Boso et al 2020). This might indicate a process of local domestication of wild subspecies (Boso et al 2020), or the introgression of wild V. sylvestris in the study region. Genetic analyses of ancient grapevines from the neighbouring wine-growing region of Vinho Verde (in Portugal) pointed out the existence of introgression from wild plants into currently cultivated varieties (Cunha et al 2020).…”

Evidence of post-domestication hybridization and adaptive introgression in Western European grapevine varieties

“…Within the context of the Iberian Peninsula, we find additional support that hybridization was not a fairly recent event. A morphometrics study of grape pips from Northwestern Iberia archaeological sites grouped medieval and Roman pips close to the modern variety Alvarinho (PT)/ Albariño (SP) (63). This C wIB2 member is a hallmark variety for Vinhos Verdes wines, and was suggested to be a first-generation migrant from sylvestris based on SSR data (31).…”