Rowan Hooper’s new book, Togetherness, is a fascinating study of symbiosis, what he calls a “neglected silo” of scientific research. The subject might sound a bit geeky and pointy-headed, but it’s central to the way that nature works.
To anyone brought up on Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, or who has watched an hour of Nature’s Deadliest Animal Showdowns narrated by a whispering Sir David Attenborough, the idea that nature favours co-operation and collaboration over conflict and the survival of the fittest will seem counterintuitive. An unashamed Darwin fan, Hooper says that the notion that competition is the only driver of evolution is incorrect.
There’s a human element to this too, although it goes against the precepts of capitalism and “social Darwinism”. “We live on a symbiotic planet,” he writes, “we are a symbiotic species, and only together will we thrive.” Hooper argues, convincingly, that “symbiosis blurs the meaning of individual”, a message for our times perhaps.
The book contains numerous examples of symbiosis in action, from lichens to coral, ants to orchids, wasps to figs. Different species seek out and, invariably, find the right partner. What’s more, they communicate with each other at some non-verbal level. Far from being static, the relationship is fluid and evolves, as all good relationships must.
Vines do not feature in the book. I attended a lecture that Hooper gave in London recently and he admitted that they are not his area of expertise. But in a recent podcast I did with Katia Nussbaum of San Polino in Brunello de Montalcino, I was fascinated to learn about her experiments with “vitiforestry”, which is another example of symbiosis.
The link between trees and grape vines is older than wine itself. Wild vines are essentially creepers, or climbers, seekers of light to drive photosynthesis. Until they were domesticated, they used trees to find it. You can still see this form of arboreal viticulture in Chile – Bouchon’s País Salvaje label has a drawing of a picker on a ladder – and especially Bolivia’s Cinti Valley. Trees provide a form of natural trellis for the vine, as well as shade and frost protection. The downside is that they compete for water – a concern with climate change – and may bring new pests and diseases to vineyards.
But the positives seem to outweigh the negatives, not least in terms of biodiversity. At Cheval des Andes in Mendoza, the multinational LVMH, not a company to waste money for the sake of it, has planted 2,000 trees among the rows of vines at its estate in Las Compuertas since 2021 to create what it calls a “polyculture”.
Back in Montalcino, Katia Nussbaum and her family have incorporated maple trees into one of their vineyards to see if symbiosis occurs. The whole estate is surrounded by forest, but now she’s taken the connection a stage further.
Thanks to the work of writers such as Suzanne Simard and Peter Wohlleben, we know that trees communicate with each other through networks of mycorrhizal fungi. They also work together as a community, with older trees nurturing the younger ones with food and water. Healthy vineyards, too, have their fungal network. Is this more developed in older, more established parcels? Are organic, biodynamic or regenerative forms of agriculture more likely to allow it to flourish? The answer is almost certainly yes.
Well-farmed vineyards are alive. I once walked through a biodynamic vineyard in Burgundy with the late Anne-Claude Leflaive and it was like treading on a thick carpet; a chemically treated one next door was a stretch of concrete by contrast.
Talking to Katia made me think about terroir, which is not an easy term to explain. It’s sometimes called a “three-legged stool” in France, combining soil/geology, climate and a human element, with knowledge passed down through the generations. Of course, terroir is considerably more complicated than that. Katia describes what’s happening in vineyards as a cat’s cradle, “its strings held not only by human hands but by all the organic and non-organic elements whose togetherness gives rise to the living whole”. I think she’s right. Some of these relationships we understand; most we don’t. Yet soil health is —and should always be—recognised as a vital part of terroir.
Are the vines, too, communicating with each other, working together as a unified entity? Does terroir think, as it were? Are the fungal networks of trees and vines stronger than the sum of their parts? “We don’t know,” she says. “All we’re doing is asking questions.” The right questions in my view.
Originally published in Harpers Wine & Spirit; photo by Sebastian Dumitru on Unsplash
