The
Great French Wine Blight was a severe
blight of the mid-19th century that destroyed many of the
vineyards in France and laid waste to the wine industry. It was caused by an
aphid (the actual genus of the aphid is still debated, although it is largely considered to have been a species of
Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, commonly known as
grape phylloxera) that originated in North America and was carried across the Atlantic in the late 1850s. While France is considered to have been worst affected, the blight also did a great deal of damage to vineyards in other European countries.