The French vine breeder François Baco (1865-1947) was active in the fight against the phylloxera plague that spread extensively in France and many other European countries starting in 1880. He learned professional grafting, which means the budding of European noble vines onto American rootstocks, from the botanist Lucien Louis Daniel (1865-1940). Following the appearance of black rot in 1896, he began breeding fungus-resistant hybrids. Baco performed artificial fertilization on 1,200 flower clusters and subsequently planted around 50,000 grape seeds on the estate of his friend Jules Darrignan in Labatut in the region of Southwest France. Through years of work, he selected around 7,000 cuttings from over 50,000, of which ultimately no more than ten were marketed by 1912. He was supported in this by his son Maurice. The plants are named after him (plus number), some later received catchy names. They were French hybrids of the first generation, mostly between fungus-resistant American vines (for example, Noah) and European vines (for example, Folle Blanche). The most well-known new cultivars of wine grapes for wine production are Baco Blanc (Baco 22A), Baco Chasselas (Baco 7A), Baco Noir (Baco 1), Olivar (Baco 30-15), Rescape (Baco 9-11), and Totmur (Baco 2-16). He also created rootstocks such as Caperan (Baco 43-23). The US wine pioneer Philip Wagner (1904-1996) from Maryland was largely responsible from the 1940s onwards for the spread of Baco varieties (and also other breeders like Albert Seibel and Joannes Seyve) along the entire East Coast of America. François Baco: From Centre culturel du Pays d'Orthe, Public domain, Link. Grape varieties: Ursula Brühl, Doris Schneider, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI)
