Harold Olmo (July 31, 1909 – June 30, 2006) was an American

viticulturist Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

and professor at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

where he created many new grape varieties known today as

Olmo grapes Olmo grapes are wine and table grape varieties produced by University of California, Davis viticulturist Dr. Harold Olmo. Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Dr. Olmo bred a wide variety of both grapes by means of both crossing varietie ...

. In the 1950s, he helped to establish California's first

quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...

facility on the UC Davis campus to permit California growers to import foreign vines. This led to an expansion of California's

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

industry as more ''

Vitis vinifera ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, is a species of flowering plant, native to the Mediterranean region, Central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern Iran. There are curre ...

'' was introduced to the area.

Career

Harold Olmo studied horticulture at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he earned his doctorate in plant genetics. His work with grapes started in 1931, during the Prohibition.Jane Anson
Remembering Harold Olmo: The ‘Indiana Jones of viticulture’
''Decanter.com'', 16 January 2020 He became an assistant professor of viticulture at UC Davis in 1938. In 1939, he set up a research plot in the Larkmead Vineyards. In 1948, he traveled a total of 12,000 miles in Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to collect seeds and cuttings from the region. He brought it back to the USA, a collection that eventually became UC Davis' collection of genetically-diverse grapes. He also imported cuttings of the Greek varieties

assyrtiko Assyrtiko or Asyrtiko is a white Greek wine grape indigenous to the island of Santorini. Assyrtiko is widely planted in the arid volcanic-ash-rich soil of Santorini and other Aegean islands, such as Paros. It is also found on other scattered reg ...

and moschofilero in the USA, which were stored at UC Davies until the Abbey of New Clairvaux started cultivating it in 2011. In 1955, Olmo was in Western Australia studying climatic limitations of viticulture in the Swan Valley. Olmo spent eight months in Western Australia at the invitation of the Western Australian Vine Fruits Research Trust. When he published his report in 1956, one of the recommendations put forward was that Mount Barker and the Frankland of the Great Southern area of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

showed great promise for making table wines in the light traditional European style. Olmo also developed more than 30 new grape varieties, including Ruby Cabernet,

Carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often use ...

Rubired Olmo grapes are wine and table grape varieties produced by University of California, Davis viticulturist Dr. Harold Olmo. Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Dr. Olmo bred a wide variety of both grapes by means of both crossing varietie ...

and

Royalty Royalty may refer to: * Any individual monarch, such as a king, queen, emperor, empress, etc. * Royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen regnant, and sometimes his or her extended family * Royalty payment for use of such things as int ...

Vitis International Variety Catalogue The Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) is a database of various species and varieties/cultivars of grapevine, the genus ''Vitis''. VIVC is administered by the Geilweilerhof Institute for Grape Breeding (''Institut für Rebenzüchtung Gei ...

(VIVC)
Royalty
'' Accessed: August 17th, 2012J. Robinson ''Jancis Robinson's Guide to Wine Grapes'' pg 161 Oxford University Press 1996 He retired from UC Davis in 1977. He was also a consultant for the United Nations, a

Fulbright scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. He died in 2006, and had patented his last grape a few months before his death. The sum of his work and research is stored at UC Davis, under the file collection number D280, and was digitized for global access in 2020.Lyne Norton
Larkmead Vineyards honors influential viticulture researcher with $200,000 gift to UC Davis
''Sfexaminer.com'', 10 January 2020 Since 2013, Larkmead Vineyards has been releasing the 'Larkmead Dr. Olmo', a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon cru born out of Harold Olmo's 1939 test crops planted on the Vineyards' property.

References

External links

Harold Olmo Papers
a
Special Collections Dept.
, University Library, University of California, Davis {{DEFAULTSORT:Olmo, Harold 1909 births 2006 deaths University of California, Davis faculty 20th-century American businesspeople Wine merchants American viticulturists

Career

See also

References

External links