Agriculture
Grape Season
I love grapes. And even though I grew up in a grocery store, how did I not know that fall is the heart of grape season?
Grapes are in the produce aisle every week of the year, so it never occurred to me that they have a season at all. They do, and it got me asking another question I'd never thought about: is a grape a grape?
Grown to eat, or grown for wine
It turns out the grapes in your fruit bowl and the grapes in your wine glass are bred for opposite jobs.
Grapes grown to eat are big, crisp, and thin-skinned, and most are seedless. They're grown to look good and travel well. Growers train the vines so each cluster hangs free and the grapes don't rub and bruise. They're also less sweet than you might think.
Grapes grown for wine are small, thick-skinned, and full of seeds. They're much sweeter at harvest, with far more juice than pulp, and the skins give wine its color and much of its flavor. Growers keep the vines lean on purpose. A mature wine vine might give just 8 to 12 pounds of grapes, because fewer grapes means more concentrated flavor.
So a Cabernet grape would make a disappointing snack, and a red table grape would make thin, watery wine. Same fruit, two very different crafts.
America's great grape regions
Grapes grow all over this country. A few places have become famous for them.
San Joaquin Valley, California. This is where your snacking grapes come from. The valley grows about 85 percent of California's table grapes, and its harvest runs from midsummer into the late fall.
Napa and Sonoma, California. The names most people know. Napa put American wine on the world map, and its neighbor Sonoma grows everything from Zinfandel to Pinot Noir.
Willamette Valley, Oregon. A cool, damp valley between the Coast Range and the Cascades, known around the world for Pinot Noir. Oregon's first wine region, it now has more than 700 wineries.
Columbia Valley, Washington. East of the Cascades, it's nearly desert, with about eight inches of rain a year. Irrigation, hot days, cold nights, and long summer daylight produce Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, and Riesling. Nearly all of Washington's wine grapes grow on this dry side of the mountains.
Finger Lakes, New York. This one surprised me. In upstate New York, about 130 wineries surround long, deep glacial lakes that act like a heater, keeping nearby vineyards 10 to 15 degrees warmer than land just half a mile away. Lake snow insulates the vines in winter. It's the state's largest wine region and is especially known for Riesling. In the 1950s and '60s, a Ukrainian-born scientist named Dr. Konstantin Frank proved European grapes could survive the cold there, and he helped build the region we know today.
Lake Erie, Ohio. Here's one most people don't know, including me until now. Before California, Ohio was America's wine country. By 1860, Ohio made more wine than any other state, and in 1872 the largest winery in the country stood on Middle Bass Island in Lake Erie. Prohibition nearly wiped it out. But vineyards still grow on the Lake Erie islands today, and Heineman Winery is still pouring in Put-in-Bay. As someone who grew up in Ohio, I love that.
Grand Valley, Colorado. Closer to home, around Palisade on the Western Slope. These are some of the highest vineyards in the country, at about 4,500 to 4,700 feet, protected by the Book Cliffs and cooled by a canyon breeze. The valley grows about 80 percent of Colorado's wine grapes.
Every region, its own season
What ties all of these places together is the season. Each one waits all year for a few weeks in late summer and fall, when the grapes are ready and the whole community turns out to bring them in.
I care about how food gets from the farm to our tables. Most of us don't think about seasons anymore, because the store is always full. But every crop still has its moment, and the families who grow it work all year for it.
And if you're like me and just learned that grapes have a season, you're not alone. Now we both know.
Every grape has a purpose, and tonight it's only logical that I honor one of them. Anyone who knows me knows my favorite grape snack comes in a wine glass.
Full confession, though: after an entire post on America's great grape regions, the bottle I'm reaching for is a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Some grapes are worth crossing an ocean for.
But this post has me curious. I want to get out and explore more of America's grape regions, one valley at a time. Who knows? My next favorite might be a lot closer to home.
Jodi Ashton, Founder & Managing Director
Photo: Vineyards, Put-in-Bay, Ohio, between 1880 and 1899. Detroit Publishing Co., Library of Congress.