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Fox Grapes
Written By: Jeannie Chambers - The Accidental Gardener | Issue: 2017/11 - November
Ever read Aesop’s Fables? If so, I’m sure you remember the one called …“The Fox and the Grapes.”
One hot summer’s day, a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine, which had been trained over a lofty branch.
“Just the thing to quench my thirst,”quoth he.
Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch.
Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again, and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying “I am sure they are sour.”
Moral of the story: It’s easy to despise what you cannot get.
Grapes have been around since around 6,500 BC and is a fruit used in most any stage. Fresh as a healthy snack, dried as raisins, and over the centuries, has resulted in trillions of gallons of wine flowing freely all over the world.
When European settlers came to America, they found an abundance of grapes growing wild, and some thought the areas containing the vines smelled like an animal, like a fox’s den, thus the name Fox Grape emerged. Fox Grapes (vitis labrusca) have a thicker skin that slips off easily when eaten fresh, and that’s a good thing because the skin is bitter.
Wild grapes have a chemical component that has a slight musky smell, which gives way to another common name − Muscadine (V.rotundifolia), like the French wine Muscatel. The Concord Grape is a cultivar of the Fox Grape, and another cold hardy variety of Muscadines were named by native Americans − Scuppernong.
Fox Grapes may have been one of the varieties sent to France in the mid-19th century to help save the grapes from ruin during the great French wine blight. (Here’s where you picture a little grape guy pulling back his shirt to reveal a Supersized ‘F’ on his purple T-shirt) Without our wild fox grapes, some wines wouldn’t flow so freely, and the Highlands Food & Wine Festival would only be half as much fun. Maybe we should give a little credit to Aesop too; that fox didn’t know what he was missing.
