I do think that definitions have maybe not been as technical (read as *not* two wine geeks chatting after 4-5 glasses) as they might be. There aren't that many "high level" technical conversations here, more casual conversation. I will add that I think the tone of Peter's posts might have been more "how can I help you?" rather than "look, here's the facts, disagree if you want [dummy]."

An a former educator it's about helping people to learn at *their* speed and level of sophistication not about how the educator thinks it should be done. Plenty of of good professors and bad professors (as instructors). Delivery of knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself.

Anyway, directly typed from page 357 of The Oxford Companion to Wine, Second Edition:

hybrids, in common viticultural terms, the offspring of two varieties of different species, as distinct from a CROSS between two varieties of the same species (see VITIS for details of the various species of the vine genus.) EUROPEAN UNION authorities prefer the somewhat cumbersome term 'interspecific cross' to the word hybrid, which has pejorative connotations within Europe.

Hybrids can occur naturally by cross-pollination, as happened, for example, in early American viticulture (see AMERICAN HYBRIDS). More commonly, however, hybrids have been deliberately produced by man (see NEW VARIETIES and VINE BREEDING) to combine in the progeny of some of the desirable characteristics of the parents. The viticultural activity was particularly important in the late 19th century when European, and especially French, breeders tried to combine the desirable wine quality of European VINIFERA varieties with AMERICAN VINE SPECIES' resistance to introduced American pests and diseases, especially the PHYLLOXERA louse, which was devastating European vineyards (see FRENCH HYBRIDS).

[Four more paragraphs follow, left out for copyright reasons and shit like that. The basics needed here get covered above.]


Edited by Marc Hanes (07-09-2009 02:26:46)
Edit Reason: typo