Imagine, it's the year 2013, you saunter down to your local Vintage Cellars on Saturday morning to taste the just released Chateau Hazchem range from winemaker Mary Shelley. Her brochure lists the following wines: Transgenic 'Traminer 2012, Chromosome-Challenged Chardonnay 2012, Cloned Claret 2010, Mutant Merlot 2011, Cabernet Franc(enstein) 2010, and Recombinant Riesling 2012.

Mary apologises for the absence of her sweet white, the fabled Hazkem Noble Semillon. "Noble rot is no more." she sighs. "The botrytis fungus is extinct." she sobs. "Alas, it succumbed to pollen from the genetically modified Noble Fung-Up Semillon Vines (Trademark Registered) I foolishly planted five years ago."

Fantasy? Not really. A casual Internet search for genetic+modification+grapes at www.dogpile.com produced a number of references relating to research into genetic engineering of grapes. Grapevines are subject to all sorts of devastating diseases and pests. These include various moulds and fungi, insects such as phylloxera, virus disease, and hungry birds. The viticultural problems are currently kept under control by an expensive assortment of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, nets, grafting, selective breeding and hybridisation. It is inevitable then that scientists will investigate methods of genetically modifying grapevines to create vines blessed with cost-effective, in-built immunity.

But will wine made from GM grapes taste the same? I don't know, but I doubt it. Will the public accept GM wines? Well, they may not be welcome in the European Union, where hybridised grapes are not permitted for use in the production of fine wine and where GM edibles are popularly referred to as Frankenstein foods.

But we already eat GM soy products, wear clothes made from GM cotton and will shortly be frying food in GM canola oil. Consumers eat eggs and meat from battery-farmed chickens and steak from feedlot beef, accepting passively that the source animals are fed on antibiotics, growth hormones and promotants and, in the case of some cattle, processed chicken manure. Shoppers who are happy with such produce will, I predict, accept GM wine with open throats and closed minds.

Excuse me while I drown my sorrows in a glass of DNA-Deviant Durif 1996. (Do Not Ask.)

© Martin Field