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Did you know?
People in Valais have always drunk their wine uncut Valais producers have a taste for competitions To fight mildew, the vines were sulphated with a broom Before 1850, the vineyard looked like a forest of vines Wine is drunk like water until the mid-20th century The brisolée is born with the harvest Men prune, women deleaf New mothers drank up to one litre of warm wine a day Pigs wandered among the vines in the Middle Ages The Grand St Bernard chanoines drank in secret In the 18th century, egg whites were used to clarify red wine Wine was a good way to poison your enemies Early travelers were fascinated by Valais wines Industry killed the vines in Monthey Before the 20th century, there were practically no vines in Savièse Saxon, always a balance between grapes and apricots Amigne and Humagne did not arrive with the Romans
Did you know ?

To fight mildew, the vines were sulphated with a broom

Downy mildew attacked vines towards the end of the 19th century. The canton in Valais gave the alarm in 1892. Growers who do not put up a fight against the new diseases will lose their vines. A weapon arrives to neutralize this parasite fungus, a blue preparation made with copper: the Bordeaux mixture.
This magic potion was discovered by accident, in France. In the Medoc, growers noticed that leafs covered with verdigris to keep away thieves were spared downy mildew. In the area around Beaune, in Burgundy, vines near stakes treated with copper sulphate remained healthy.
The first mixture, ready to be applied, was called La Renommée and could be bought at the village food store. Today it has been replaced by synthetic products, but some growers still use it, alternating it with other fungicides.

Before helicopters

In the early days, it was applied manually with the help of a natural broom made of straw or a branch of Swiss pine (also called Arolla pine) or juniper, soaked in a bucket or pail with the mixture. The first spray versions came into use in the 1870s and the first pumps for sulphating were sold in 1888. During the 1960s a motorized sprayer appeared. From the first pumps adapted for motorized cultivation, to motorized pumps and turbo-sprayers, to helicopter sprayers: the methods for spraying these treatments have continually improved, with gains in efficiency, time and manual labour.

Sourced from
HUGON-DUC Mélanie, ZUFFEREY Anne-Dominique, « Maladies et ravageurs : plus d’un siècle de lutte » in Histoire de la Vigne et du Vin en Valais : des origines à nos jours, Sierre-Salgesch, Musée valaisan de la Vigne et du Vin, Gollion, Infolio, 2009.

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