Carole Meredith

Carole P. Meredith (born January 1948) is a Welsh-born, American grape geneticist, professor emerita at UC Davis, and vintner. She was elected in 1990 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Carole Meredith and her husband Stephen Lagier are the co-founders and co-owners of Lagier Meredith Vineyard.

Quotes

Methods to introduce genes, either from grapevines or other organisms, into existing grape cultivars are now well-established and permit the targeted modification of existing grape cultivars. This may provide a means to reduce disease losses and pesticide usage in classic cultivars without otherwise changing their wine attributes.
- (2001) . "Grapevine genetics: probing the past and facing the future". Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus 66 (1): 21–25.

With potent new DNA analysis tools, researchers could capture a species’ unique genetic fingerprint to trace its origins and evolutionary history. Once DNA markers for grapes became available, Meredith and her team at UC Davis quickly harnessed the power of DNA fingerprinting to identify classic vinifera varieties and resolve longstanding questions about their murky history. Meredith and grad student John Bowers even surprised themselves in 1996 by revealing a mixed heritage of white (Sauvignon Blanc) and red (Cabernet Franc) grapes for Cabernet Sauvignon. And in what many call her crowning achievement, Meredith—whose place in the wine pantheon was secured by a 2009 induction into the Vintners Hall of Fame—confirmed that Zinfandel, long claimed California’s “historic” native, is the genetic twin of the nearly extinct Crljenak Kastelanski grape variety, once grown along Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast.
- as quoted by Liza Gross in: (January 2010) "Evolution of a Scientist-Vintner: Carole Meredith weighs in on genetic engineering of winegrapes". Wines & Vines.

... I started to contact other grape geneticists in labs all over the world—initially 10 or 15 different research groups in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa—and proposed that we form a consortium to develop these markers. Each lab would try to develop a few markers and then contribute those markers to the general pool that we would share. We formed the Vitis Microsatellite Consortium. After a couple of years we had developed several hundred markers. We were able to make some interesting discoveries by just using a couple of dozen markers, because that is enough to prove statistically whether one variety is related to another variety. But once several hundred markers existed it was then possible to develop a genome map of grape, a project that was really just starting around the time that I retired from UC Davis.
The highlight of my career was using these DNA markers to reveal genetic relationships among classic wine grapes and to then elucidate from that something about the history of wine.
- as quoted by GuildSomm Admin, An Interview with Dr. Carole Meredith. Guild of Sommeliers (guildsomm.com) (12 January 2012).