"The biggest improvement in my fifty plus years in the Napa Valley world of wine is the choice and quality of plant material.  Back in the 1960's we had two rootstock varieties, AXR and St. George, to choose from and the budwood to bud onto the rootstock ususally came from a neighboring vineyard that appeared free of disease.  The AXR rootstock proved susceptible to phylooxera and well over half the vineyards in Napa Valley had to be replanted between 1987 and 1991.  (At Paradigmwe had to replant about half the vineyard.)  St. George is still in use but usually only on hillsides where the St. George vigor is regarded as a plus."  

Selecting budwood from a nearby vineyard had its problems in that disease would often be present but not yet obvious to the naked eye.  Also the actual grape variety was sometimes wrong.

Today there are dozens of rootstocks to choose from and they can be tailored to climate, exposure, soil and eventual tonnage.  Budwood is most often from a certified nursery and grafted to the rootstock at the nursery prioir to delivery to the vineyard (bench grafts).  Both the rootstock and the budwood are tested for disease by the nursery and usually retested by the vineyard owner prior to acceptance.

At Paradigm in addition to our 38 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon are 10 acres of Merlot, 2 acres of Cabernet Franc, 1.5 acres of Zinfandel and 1 acre of Petit Verdot.

Today, at Paradigm, we have six different clones of Cabernet Sauvignon budded to three different roots and we will be adding another clone (169) and anotehr rootstock (Schwarzmann) this Spring.  All our plantings since 1986 have been on rootstock that has been tested and certified disease free; they bear the names 101-14, 5C & 1616-C.  412, 30, 6 & Jenkins (which we had not tested).  We also have several acres of See Clone Cabernet which was not certified when we planted it."

- Ren Harris