Muscadine from Napa Valley?!?

I live in Louisiana, so it’s not unusual for me to encounter a few locally produced bottles of non-vinifera wines - whether Muscadine or Blackberry. One West Monroe-based winery, Landry Vineyards, makes a few Muscadine wines - sweet, red, white, rosé…

Prior to this evening, I had never seen nor heard of wine made from the Muscadine grape in the middle of Cabernet Sauvignon country. Who would be crazy enough to do something like that?

The Wine-Bid site includes a number of Napa Valley Auction bottles. I ended up visiting the official Premiere Napa Valley webpage to see what various one-offs and unusual bottlings were highlighted. My jaw almost hit the floor as I cast my eyeballs on one “Spiriterra Vineyards 2013 Muscadine”!!!

Per the PNVA site:

“100% Muscadine individually handpicked from small, sustainable family estate near Howell Mountain”

https://premierenapavalley.com/wines/wine_detail.asp?Lot=600125

On the Spiriterra Vineyards website, a Muscadine is available for purchase ($25/btl).

“In 2009 we planted our, and Napa Valley’s, first experimental Muscadine and Scuppernong vineyard. Spiriterra Vineyards proprietor, Paul Dean, was raised in rural Georgia and wanted to bring a little bit of his southeastern upbringing to the Napa Valley. These native grapes of North America are traditionally grown in the southeastern United States and have been cultivated for more than 400 years for the production of commercial fine wines and ports.”

https://www.spiriterravineyards.com/vineyards

Now, I have always understood Muscadine and Scuppernong to be one and the same thing. Apparently I am mistaken.

https://www.spiriterravineyards.com/spiriterra-vineyards-brings-taste-of-south-to-napa-valley

Can anyone help me wrap my head around why someone would plant some Muscadine on land that probably costs thousands of dollars per square foot? :astonished:

Yikes. Perhaps someone has a Beverly Hillbillies fixation?

Well, one of the owners is from Georgia…

Honestly, if I could grow grapes in California - or Louisiana, for that matter - I would choose Blanc du Bois before the foxy, stanky-skinned Muscadine grape.

Sure, the wines from the Muscadine variety don’t taste like the grapes smell, but I stand by my statement.

Muscadine is a large family of grapes, Vitis Rotundafolia. Scuppernong is just one of
the varieties in that family…as I understand it.
Maybe I should go up to the NobleGrapes thread below and add Scuppernong?? [snort.gif]
Tom

Because it is naturally resistant to Pierce’s Disease?

It is a few rows of vines next to the house. They were intended as table grapes but make a bit into wine each year, too. I tasted the first vintage a few years back at PNV. Fun, tasty dessert wine.

Had Spiritterra’s Muscadine wines. Certainly have that Muscadine funk taste. Indescribable unless you haven’t had it before. Touch of burned doll and petrol in there, too. It’s almost Retsina-like at times. Not very pleasant.

I keep being fascinated with Muscadine, though. Just ordered a few bottles from Duplin, apparently their “dry” outings (whatever that means from that syrup-merchant). There’s a little part of me that wants to see if it would be possible to vinify Muscadines in an interesting way and actually create something that could be enjoyable. Last year I planted a Late Fry Muscadine in my backyard and it’s doing pretty well. Hoping next year she would give me some fruit so I can do a little experimentation with it…

Maybe their intention was to make jelly.

“burned doll”?

The highest and best uses for V. rotundifolia grapes are eating out of hand (both red and white varieties are delicious when ripe and spitting the seed is fun) and making jelly (primarily the red varieties as scuppernong jelly tends to lack the complexity of a good muscadine jelly). I’m not as partial to jams, preserves, or muscadine hull pies, but prefer either to any muscadine wine I’ve had. It just doesn’t seem terribly well-suited to vinification. I’ve gone through 4 pounds of scuppernongs so far this year just eating them raw and almost all of them have been ripe enough that the skins have been as delicious as the juice.