A Medieval Grape Is Still Used to Make Wine

When geneticists crushed up the grape seed, extracted its DNA, and compared it with modern grapes, they found a perfect genetic match in Savagnin Blanc—a grape still grown, still picked, and still made into wine in Europe today. Nathan Wales, an ancient-DNA researcher at the University of York, and his collaborators came across the 900-year-old Savagnin Blanc among 28 grape seeds excavated from nine different archaeological sites around France. One group of these Roman-era grape seeds were genetically similar, but not identical, to a modern variety called Mondeuse Blanche.

Source: www.theatlantic.com