Among the pathogens infecting grapevines, viruses particularly stand out due to the damages they cause and the degeneration (loss of vigor) of the plants they affect throughout the years, resulting in reduced production and quality of grapes. This could even economically impair this activity. In specific combinations of rootstock/cultivar and viral species, grapevine viral diseases can be latent and could thus go undetected and be successively propagated, resulting in high levels of infection in certain propagation materials used by the growers. At least 60 viral diseases have been reported to infect grapevines in grape producing countries worldwide. Virus-resistance genes have not been detected yet in species of the genus Vitis. This fact hinders conventional genetic improvement of grapevines to obtain resistance to these pathogens. Therefore, in order to reduce infections by viruses, the main recommendation is to use virus-free propagation material for the establishment of vineyards. For many years Embrapa Grape & Wine has been developing a program which includes clonal cleaning (elimination of viruses) from several grapevine cultivars and rootstocks by thermotherapy and tissue culture, monitoring and indexing of mother stock plants. Results of this work has reached growers by offering grapevine propagation material with higher sanitation standards, i.e. materials from which important viral pathogens have been removed. The establisment of real time RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) technique and hybridization with polyprobes in this program will increase the quality and the sanitary status of mother stock plants and of grapevine propagation material used to establish vineyards in several regions of Brazil. Grapevine propagative material plants labelled with "higher sanitation status” are being distributed via Embrapa's Office in Canoinhas SC, Brazil, to growers and nurserymen.