In the learning activity developed online and associated to the project 2018-1-ES01-KA201-04993 it has been tried to compare the economic and sanitary crisis caused by the COVID-19 in the 21st century and the crisis produced in the European vineyards by the phylloxera in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The development and content of the project has been partially modified as it was not possible to develop experiential activities, nor activities developed in a practical way in the partner of the Cypriot partner and on the other hand to develop the online work and to develop the online mobilisation on the global pandemic. It is impossible to develop an activity without taking into account the problem generated.



Obviously it is not the same type of pandemic (one attacks human beings and the other attacks the vineyard) nor the same type of economic impact (in the second case it is more focused on the oenological and agricultural sector), but it seemed interesting to contrast both situations as phylloxera is a plague generated by diffusion, export and international trade, a global plague and a plague in which unity and cooperation between European winegrowers and winemakers managed to overcome and generate an expansion of the oenological sector after solving the crisis. Unity, the search for solutions and entrepreneurial initiative to regenerate the sector can be used today as an example in the COVID crisis we are currently experiencing.



First of all, it is necessary to explain what phylloxera is. Phylloxera is an insect that attacks the leaves and root filaments of vines and multiplies very quickly and can destroy large areas of vineyards in a very short time.



The phylloxera infected (by laying its eggs there) the roots of the weak native European plants, killing them in a short time. In America, vines are more resistant because they are made of harder wood. The solution, after changing production techniques, searching for insecticides and other techniques subsidised by the French government, was to insert grafts of European varieties on roots (rootstocks) of American Vitis Labrusca and American varieties such as Zinfadel, rootstocks resistant to phylloxera.


The appearance of phylloxera in France led in a very short time to the total destruction of hundred-year-old vineyards, spread rapidly to the rest of the European vineyards and generated an unprecedented economic crisis in the wine-making sector.


What did European winegrowers do? In the face of this crisis, they did not sit back and do nothing. They generated information, raised the problem, looked for solutions and generated cooperative work to find the solution and at the same time change and improve the wine production system, moving from artisanal production to wholesale production and distribution.


The generation of new species such as Garnacha and Palomino, the substitution of red vines for white in Catalonia, thus creating Cava wine, the dissemination of Rioja wine around the world by Bordeaux winegrowers and the spread of French production systems throughout Europe are examples of being able to replace a crisis with a new opportunity.


In our school society, we wanted to guide this work among our students in this direction. We are all aware of the terrible impact, in health and economic terms, of the COVID crisis in Europe and the world, but we want to guide our students in the search for solutions and in cooperative work in order to generate ideas and entrepreneurship among them.


The work studies the problems that have occurred and tries to design several ideas related to wine tourism, rural tourism, agriculture and the wine sector and the link between these sectors and the international pandemic, as well as possible improvements and ideas for the recovery of these sectors.

We have had the collaboration of various local institutions, working with them in online sessions, and in some centres (the Spanish centres, the only ones that have had a face-to-face course) we have been able to develop some experiential activities in the centre itself.

Click on each icon and you will be able to see the work developed by the centres or institutions and the individual projects of entrepreneurship and research on specific sections and their connection with the wine sector and the COVID crisis.