Paper short abstract:

From the 1950s winegrape cultivation rose exponentially in several countries. In exploring the role of state-funded science-for-industry in this expansion I argue that the international career of the USA's Harold Olmo is a key to understanding changing human-Vitis relations in global context.

Paper long abstract:

In the late twentieth century state-funded science for industry contributed to changing human-Vitis relations through modernizations that ultimately spurred the globalization of the wine trade from countries such as Australia and elsewhere. Students travelled from around the world to learn from American grape scientist Harold Olmo at the Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California, Davis. Olmo in turn travelled and networked extensively from the 1950s to 1970s, including to Australia, as the USA exerted Cold War soft power through cultural, economic and scientific exchange. He also extended his international networks through corresponding with representatives of other governments, not-for-profit organisations, business and industry. Olmo’s professional archive in UC Davis Special Collections reveals the professor’s wide reach in the diffusion of modern methods of grape production and also grape mass production in which winegrapes were a subset, not always the main game. Olmo bred new grapevine clones. He advised on the up-scaling of vine management systems, engineered irrigation, and machines for pruning and harvesting. As one of the most influential grape scientists of the postwar era, Olmo’s networks and innovations provide a framework for interrogating the environmental effects of the emergence of the contemporary global winescape.