Dino Extinction Paved Way for Grapes—and Wine—to 'Spread Across the World'

The extinction of the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago may have helped facilitate the spread of grapes around the world, researchers have proposed. In a study published on Monday in the journal Nature Plants, a team of scientists describe nine new species of fossil grapes from Colombia, Peru and Panama that date to between 60 and 19 million years ago. One of these species—from the Colombian Andes—represents the earliest known example of plants from the grape family (Vitaceae) in …