I am new to grapes and looking for a few more varieties to purchase: seedless table grapes suitable for fresh eating.
I often see Labrusca flavor mentioned - what does this mean / taste like?
I prefer crisp sweet / fruity / Aromatic grapes but most seem to be noted as soft. Are there any recommendations hardy in zone 5 ( im in 6a but prefer a more cold hardier variety to be safe )
I come across different information regarding preferable soil. My soil is mostly clay, and on a slope. I planned to amend the soil, as Ive done with all of my trees, but I recently read that grapes prefer clay and a slope?
I cannot define Labrusca, but I will give a plug for Sommerset Seedless as tasty (crisp, fruity, and aromatic) grape. Cold hardy and the most disease resistant grape that I have grown.
I imagine that this refers to the “foxy” flavor and aroma of Vitis labrusca (the fox grape—the best-known cultivar of which is “Concord”). It is usually described as earthy or sweet and musky.
I am getting into grape breeding. I had my first four vines fruit last year and one tastes exactly like a Concord. I am in Zone 4 and this new seedling would be better in Zone 5 since it ripens in early October. It is probably hardy to minus 40 since its parent is Niel’s Hansen’s Azita variety of 100 years ago. Azita is Beta x N. Dakota wild (Riparia).
think “concord…” note even niagra (“welch’s white grape juice,” etc.) has a certain concord-ish taste. Many table grapes do not, concords have a fairly unique flavor.
Labrusca flavor is the flavor of Welch’s grape juice and artificial grape flavoring. Or methyl anthranilate plus other compounds like furaneol and ethyl butanoate if you want to get technical. It gets its name because the flavor is characteristic of Vitis labrusca hybrids, the most important of which is Concord. There is some similarity with muscadine flavor as well.
I don’t know how hardy it is, but Golden Muscat is a labrusca x Muscat variety that combines a touch of labrusca flavor with Muscat aromatics. By picking earlier you can have fruit with a more citrus and Muscat flavor, but if you wait until the berries start turning yellow, the flavor becomes more Concord-like. They are a little firmer than Concord but not seedless.
The crisp flesh texture is a Vitis vinifera characteristic, and most hybrids that have enough American ancestry to be sufficiently hardy in your zone are going to have softer flesh.
Unless your soil has very poor drainage or is very alkaline, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. A lot of the information on grapes and soil is geared towards wine grapes, where vigor management is important. If you have high pH and a lot of limestone where you are, a lot of the American hybrids will struggle if ungrafted.
Zone 5 seedless grapes with a crisp texture are few and far between. I only know of two, both from U of Arkansas program. Jupiter seedless is probably your best option. Nice mild fruity muscat flavor. Not “Welchy” at all. Clusters and berries can get quite large. I have grown it. It has good disease resistance, but you need to manage mildew to keep it hardy. It is considered the hardiest of the Arkansas grapes.
Another option is Gratitude. It is listed as zone 5 hardy (but can have some occasional winter injury issues), with crisp texture and neutral flavor. I have not grown or tasted it. Probably not very disease resistant due to high percentage of vinifera parentage.
Saturn is another seedless hybrid with crisp flesh, but may not be hardy enough for you, and is said to have poor disease resistance. I have not grown it either.
I agree that Jupiter is a good grape, but the downy mildew problem really seems to limit the production of mine. Also, I had both of my vines die back to the ground last year, I am not sure if it was due to disease or cold.
Concord flavor/aroma is the typical Labrusca flavor. Labrusca plus certain level of sweetness, would be my favorite grapes flavor. Niabel, also called California concord, sales high price at Hmart in the fall. Other concord flavored grapes but sweeter than concord sale double or triple price than regular table grapes at my local grocery store in the fall. Concord still has many fans
I’ve tried some store-bought Thomcord and wasn’t a huge fan. It has the Concord flavor, but the seed traces (the aborted seeds) are just large enough to contribute a little too much astringency and bitterness for my taste. I’m sure they are chock-full of healthy antioxidants, but I’d prefer to drink wine for those.
I have been fortunate to taste hundreds of grape cultivars of many different backgrounds, and I find Thomcord to be a disappointing middle ground between the two parents: soft, relatively small, low-acid berries with large seed traces. I’d rather have one of the tetraploid labruscas with large berries and seeds big enough to spit like Kyoho or Niabel, or something with muscat parentage.
What are your favorite Muscat grapes? Summer Muscat is by far the best tasting grape I’ve eaten. I’m also trying Diamond Muscat. Summer Royal has a bit of Muscat taste but nothing like Summer Muscat.
The issue with Summer Muscat for me was cracked skin on many berries. Maybe there’s a cure? Powdery mildew?
If you could get the taste of Summer Muscat into something as pretty as Princess I think it would sell like gangbusters.
I think Muscats in general are more prone to cracking than other grapes. If you don’t mind seeds, Italia is fantastic. Huge clusters of enormous berries with nice, not overpowering Muscat flavor. The old standbys, Muscat of Alexandria and Muscat Hamburg, are both great as well. There’s a rare Olmo variety called Gold (not to be confused with the Golden Muscat I mentioned in my previous post, also a great variety) that has good Muscat flavor and ripens to brilliant golden yellow. July Muscat, if you can find it, is also a good one and as you can guess from its name, is one of the first of the table grapes to ripen. All other things being equal, these varieties don’t crack as much in my experience as the smaller-berried varieties. I think the thicker skin makes them more resilient.
Powdery mildew will definitely cause berries to crack if untreated or treated too late. Infections on young developing berries will cause the skin to split there even if the fungus is killed, as the cells there become damaged and don’t grow during berry expansion. Even American hybrids that are largely resistant to powdery mildew can have berries crack due to small spot infections on young berries. What do you use to control powdery mildew in your setup?
Mostly I didn’t have PM. But in later years it built up some. I haven’t had grapes in a few years but will be prepared this year as I start growing again.
I had Muscat of Alexandria and thought the flavor was weak. Summer Muscat has much stronger flavor. I’ll look into Italia.
I’ve been trying to find a seedless version of Concord for many years and finally managed to find one last year, appropriately named Seedless Concord. I planted it and am wondering if anyone has experience with this variety and could comment on its taste and growth habits.
Somerset does well for me in Ohio (cold winters / warm, humid summers). It is the closest thing I grow to supermarket grapes. Good flavor and pretty crisp. The only difference is the size of the berries (smaller) and the skins might be slightly thicker, but not a problem at all. Marquis is a good seedless variety. Not crisp, though. It’s very juicy. Has a nice fruity flavor but still has the thicker slip skin. If you want to know what labrusca flavor is, grocery stores usually sell 100% organic Concord grape juice near where they sell the expensive 100% tart cherry juice. That is exactly what Concord grapes taste like.
A good seedless Concord type with very large berries is Everest Seedless. It is the first seedless tetraploid grape ever officially released, as far as I know.
Italia is about as strong as Muscat of Alexandria. Muscat flavor can be a little unpredictable. It tends to increase with Brix, up to a point, and often fades with cold storage. With these larger berried varieties, the flavor is often strongest when the berries are starting to shrivel slightly. Most of the aroma compounds are synthesized in the skin, so small varieties like Summer Muscat tend to have more flavor per berry since they have more skin relative to the amount of pulp.
That said, hands down the most intense Muscat I’ve had is Suavis, a cultivar from the same breeder as Italia. It’s a pretty pink grape with medium to large berries and flavor so strong that it can be a little overpowering. I actually prefer this one a little underripe, so the acid balances the flavor and sugar. I don’t know if it’s available from nurseries, but you may be able to get it from Foundation Plant Services. I may have some cuttings available this winter as well, if you are interested.
I have tried Thomcord and it indeed tasted as a mix of Thomson and Concord. There are tiny seeds though and it is slip skin. If you are putting up with those, you may as well plant the real deal, Concord. I am trying Everest Seedless - at least from the video they say it has a strong Labrusca with thin skin and seedless. I’ve to find it for myself how true that is
