Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Grapes
By almost every measure imaginable, grape growers have been amazingly successful. Al-
though national consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables barely manages to stay even
from year to year, American consumption of fresh grapes has more than tripled since 1970,
to more than eight pounds per person. What's particularly astonishing is that the only fruits
we eat more of - bananas, apples and oranges - are all easily shipped and able to withstand
long storage. Grapes, however, are the very picture of fragility: nothing more than thin-
skinned little bags of juice.
Another amazing aspect of the grape-growing business is just how concentrated it is.
Those billion dollars worth of fresh grapes America consumes every year are grown almost
entirely in two small areas of California. In the winter, grapes are grown in the Coachella
Valley, a couple of hours east of Los Angeles. In the main summer season, they are grown
in a narrow band of the San Joaquin Valley from just north of Bakersfield to just south of
Fresno. Those two areas account for roughly 97 percent of the fresh grapes grown in the
United States.
Sadly, the one place the industry has been consistently less than amazing is in growing
a grape that has any flavor. Table grapes today have all the personality of teen idols. They
are essentially nothing but guilt-free snack foods - conveniently packaged sugar water that
allows you to feel virtuous while you eat it. Grapes have become wildly successful by elim-
inating anything that could turn consumers off- such as distinctive flavor.
Within the past couple of years, though, growers and breeders have been working on
changing that. Ironically, they're concentrating on recapturing the flavors of one of the
world's oldest and best loved grapes: the Muscat.
Muscat grapes haven't always been as innocuous as they are now. In fact, hard as it may
be to believe, not so long ago certain varieties were actually known for their flavor. Today
you could sample half a dozen commercial grapes with your eyes closed and barely be able
to tell one from the other, red from green from black. Slip an old-fashioned Concord into
the mix, or a Muscat, and the picture would change entirely. These are grapes with charac-
ter; there is no mistaking one of them for another.
