Most people don’t read comments so here’s my original comment to aforementioned post:
“Concord grapes are mainly used in juices and grape jelly, also my home town was host to a winery which makes kosher wine from Concords.
Chautauqua is the home of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union). When alcohol was banned from the US Chautauqua County, with the most grapes per acre anywhere in the US, was forced to replace its vinifera grapes with table grapes.
Years later when wine enthusiasts wanted to take advantage of Chautauqua’s unique and very brief growing season they grafted vinifera grapes onto Concord rootstock. The upshot is that NY didn’t get the phylloxera virus prevalent in Napa simply because the ancient Concord rootstock is too hardy.
Just a little tidbit of extra knowledge… D”
I also see that the bunch of grapes I photographed are kind of grainy. I did get one of the valiant rootstock, however, to share. Whenever you eat a bunch of Concords or drink Welch’s juice think of it.
I also included a photo of the grape harvester Jim Deakin uses for his vineyards. When I was a girl, local school kids, the farmer’s kids, got out of school for a week to harvest grapes by hand. My sister and I thought it would be cool to get out of school for a week but our parents knew we were not prepared for that kind of backbreaking work, especially as we were age 8 and 6. All for now, must get dinner out of the oven and give you the recipe later. Dee
