- Black to white, there's cancer. From red wine to white wine, there's cancer. In 1988, in Murillo del Río Leza (La Rioja), viticultor Jesús Galilea Esteban discovered a curiosity in one of his vineyards. On a vine of the variety “tempranillo” (Vitis vinifera) that gives black grapes, he found a large number of white grapes. From the branch that gave it, they grafted it and grafted it, they created the first grapes of which would be the “white tempranillo” variety.
The DNA tests led to the conclusion that the two variants, of bluish skin and soft and yellowish skin, are virtually identical. It accounts for 97.8% of its genetic information. It distinguishes them from that 2.2% miserable. But the result is very different: on the one hand red wine will be created and on the other white wine will be created.
A mutation occurred in the famous vine. This mutation has produced chromotripsis, that is, after a massive rupture of chromosome with genes and genetic information, the interrupted parts join in a different order from the previous one. This can lead to change. In our species, chromotripsis is associated with the formation of tumors and various genetic diseases.
This is how the white “tempranillo” is born. And La Rioja is already spreading in the land of the designation of origin. There it is born and is spreading with vine outbreaks from these first vaccines, to the departments they want, always in the lands of Navarra, Álava and La Rioja under the brand La Rioja. It is not as fruitful as the black “tampranillo”, but the fact of being new and the curiosity of his birth so close in time and location has given him a nice reputation. It says it gives wines with a considerable alcoholic strength.
If, by chance, this new white wine gets a little bit of a name and starts making money, you will feel a desire to pinch with ditches and pluck out some branches of those peculiar vines and then multiply by itself.