White wine the death knell of northern viticulture. The vine disappeared from northern Germany and Baden, and the maximum altitude for viticulture descended to 220 metres. Hans-Jürgen Otto noted that: "all the vineyards suffered and decreased in area". In England the vine also disappeared. The less early vineyards preferred to select white varieties of grapes because, even if unripe, white grapes allowed wine that was a little sour to still be consumable, while red grapes do not give enough colour and green tannins make the wine bitter. The interruption of the fermentation by a cold winter led to the discovery of the
Villard grapes different agriculture crops. These efforts were highly successful and by the end of the 1980s, the numbers for Villard noir had dropped to 2,500 hectares and for Villard blanc to 4,600 hectares. Further fueled by changes to French wine laws in the 1970s that prohibited the use of hybrid grapes in AOC wines and banned future plantings, both grapes were virtually eradicated from French vineyards by the turn of the 21st century. While the Villard grapes were once widely planted throughout southern France, particularly in the wine regions of the southwest, and could be found in Bordeaux as well the