VIENNA (AP) — Hidden among dense underbrush on an Austrian hillside, a great-great “grandparent” of one of the world’s most popular white wines survived wars, turmoil and insect pests for 500 years.
On Thursday the grapevine was found chopped to pieces by vandals — and the man who discovered it 11 years ago was near tears as he told state broadcaster ORF of his sad discovery.
“What was he trying to prove?” asked Michael Leberl of the person — or persons — who destroyed what is believed to be one of two direct ancestors of Austria’s Gruner Veltliner. “I am speechless.”
In Nevada a few months ago, some bozo spray painted thousands of year old petroglyphs. In California’s White mountains the location of the oldest Bristle Cone Pines, the oldest living things on earth, are kept secret just to avoid this.
Only because the forest service had previously granted permission to a graduate student to cut down a bristlecone pine that was later determined to be at least 4,862 years old.
Yeah, that Bristlecone on Wheeler Peak is the community where I grew up.
The commonly told story is that he broke the drill bit off, got permission from the Forest Service to cut down the tree and did it. I hadn’t heard about the different stories until I saw it in the Wikipedia article.
He returned to the area at least a couple of times and was sick about what he had done, by the way.
There is a great episode of Radio Lab titled “Oops!” which tells that story in detail. He didn’t cut it down himself, the forest service sent out a team which misunderstood the problem and cut it down.
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