Dionysus, 'most gentle and most terrible'... the vine has sometimes been linked to immortality. Why? Because its short-lived fruits are given long life as wine, because the dead-looking vines burst into life each spring, because we have kept the vine alive through myth and stories for centuries, or maybe because of the effect wine has on us. Certainly mortals were taken to new heights when they drank wine as an offering to the gods in classical times.

Water solutions
In some Australian vineyards they practise 'partial root drying' where roots on one side of the vine are kept dry while roots on the other side are irrigated. The process is then reversed. The result: fewer side shoots, less pruning and more grapes.

Cork
Cork oaks, unlike most trees, regenerate their barkWhen Quercus suber is 25 -30 years old it will do its first strip -for cork. Around 15 billion wine corks are pulled a year, and trees produce around 4,000 corks per strip. Tree destroyer? Definitely not. Cork oaks, unlike most trees, regenerate their bark. This can be (skilfully) stripped off at around nine- to twelve-year intervals for up to 200 years without harming the tree at all. Good for rural employment: Cork oak wood pastures, known as montados (Portugal) or dehesas (Spain), can also 'grow' charcoal and meat. Iberian pigs producing high-value ham, jamon serrano, feed on the fallen acorns. Good for the environment: These managed wood pastures provide valuable habitats for many plants and animals including the Iberian lynx and 42 species of birds, among them the rare black vulture and the short-toed eagle. So buying real cork conserves the cork trees and the habitat and supports livelihoods.

Information kindly provided by The Eden Project. Text copyright the Eden Project 2003