Our Juicy Past
The white man was not the first to take advantage of grapes in the Americas. Long before European settlers landed on North American soil, Native Americans were eating fox grapes, riverbank grapes, and Scuppernogs. Pueblo tribes in the Southwest were even using Arizona grapes to make raisins.
In the late 1500s, when Europeans came along, they were deeply impressed by the profusion of wild grapes all across the continent. John Smith, in 1606, was impressed by the sun grown grapes that lined river banks, forest clearings, and Native American villages. Pilgrims exploring the eastern seaboard also noted their abundance. Thomas Morton, an Englishman who had lived in Massachusetts for ten years, even made a formal report to the King and his council on American grapes entitled “New English Canaan”. The document described the bounty of wild vines crowded with white, black, and red fruits that were “so spread over the land that one should not be able to pass for them”.
Judging by the success of the native grapes, the European settlers thought it only sensible to try planting their grapes from home. Not so surprisingly, they were met with limited success. Mediterrenian, Portugese, Iranian, and German grapes did not do too well in Atlantic Seaboard soil and it took European settlers almost 150 years to give up on the dream. It wasn’t until 1802 that the cultivation of “wild” grapes came to prominence.
And it wasn’t until 1852 that we see the most pivotal moment in eastern grape cultivation — the introduction of the Concord grape. The California grape industry was also beginning to blossom in 1850s and quickly overshadowed eastern grape production. It had been growing since the early 1600s thanks to Franciscan, Capuchin, and Jesuit monks that had taken to growing grapes from Mexico in their American monasteries. In 1855, there were a mere 1,000,000 grape vines growing in California soil, and by 1870 there were 28,000,000. The region’s high production rate allowed it to meet the demand for wine and brandy across the whole of North America and it eventually was able to get fresh grapes all the way to Philadelphia thanks to the invention of the refrigerated car.
California has a near monopoly on the table grape, wine grape, and raisin grape industries, while New York and Ohio have held onto the grape juice industry, thanks to the Concord grape. New York also boasts a fine Finger Lake champagne. American grape cultivation has been one wild ride, but the fruit has proved its hardiness and its adaptability so many times over, securing for itself a place of prominence in American agriculture for many more years to come.
Source
Krochmal A, Grierson W. Brief history of grape growing in the United States. Economic Botany. 1961 Apr 1;15(2):114–8.
