Genetic Variability Evaluation and Selection in Ancient Grapevine Varieties

Contrary to what usually occurs with other crops, grapevine varieties are mostly landraces that were domesticated by humans centuries or millennia ago from populations of wild grapevines (Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris). It is logical to assume that domestication was not been a single, instantaneous act by any of the first farmers but was rather a long succession of negative mass selections of wild plants, followed by more stringent positive selections and a final selection of a single initial plant that was destined to become the source of a new variety.