Why wine lovers should raise a glass to meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs

A meteor strike 66 million years ago is believed to have brought about the demise of the dinosaurs and open the way for vines to flourish - ROGER HARRIS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The demise of the dinosaurs could be to thank for the existence of wine because it helped grapes to flourish, a study suggests.

The mass extinction event 66 million years ago allowed primitive grape species to thrive in forests which were previously unsuitable during the era of the giant reptiles.

Fossilised grape seeds found in South America date back to 60 million years ago, just after the Chicxulub meteor wiped out the dinosaurs, and are “the oldest grapes ever found in this part of the world”.

Scientists think that without dinosaurs breaking down trees and opening up wooded areas the forests of South America were “reset” and became denser with thicker canopies.

These new-look Jurassic forests were ideal for grapes, the study authors from the Field Museum in Chicago theorise, because it allowed the vines to grow more up the trees.

“In the fossil record, we start to see more plants that use vines to climb up trees, like grapes, around this time,” says study author Fabiany Herrera, an assistant curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum.

Monica Carvalho, a co-author of the study into ancient vines, holds a fossil of the oldest grape seed found in South America - FABIANY HERRERA/SWNS

Dr Herrera has spent more than a decade looking for signs of grapes in South America after the world’s oldest grape fossil was found in India in 2013.

South America’s 60-million-year-old grape has been named Lithouva susmanii, which means “Susman’s stone grape,” in honour of Arthur T. Susman, a supporter of South American paleobotany at the Field Museum.

“This new species is also important because it supports a South American origin of the group in which the common grape vine vitis evolved,” says co-author Gregory Stull, of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

A total of nine ancient grape species have been found by the scientists and published in the journal Nature Plants.

“The fossil record tells us that grapes are a very resilient order,” said Dr Herrera.

“They’re a group that has suffered a lot of extinction in the Central and South American region, but they also managed to adapt and survive in other parts of the world.”

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