With Sadie out of the picture for a couple of days, I thought I’d broach a topic that’s a little too seasoned for her 1-year-old ways — a local grape.
Have you ever enjoyed a glass of wine from the Delaware Grape?
If you thought that it came from the nation’s first state, then you’d have been wrong. The Delaware Grape is named after none other than Delaware, Ohio.
The Delaware Grape, according to Waldo’s Shamrock Vineyards Web site:
“is a native American hybrid grape variety that is used to make dry, sweet, and sparkling white wines of good quality with a barely perceptible ‘foxy’ character. Commonly grown in the Eastern U.S. on deep, fertile, well-drained soils where it ripens in early to mid-October, it has considerable popularity when made into ‘ice-wine’.”
These characteristics led to “grape fever” in the 1860s. Ben Heath had been cultivating the grape for about 15 years when he gave a basket of the grapes to fellow horticulturalist and Delaware Gazette publisher Abram Thompson in 1853. Thompson sent the grapes to
Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1855 and they were so amazed with this new “Grape from Delaware, Ohio” that they gave Thompson a silver goblet and medal and commissioned a life-size oil painting of Thompson for his wife.
Thompson was joined by two other world-famous horticulturalists – George Campbell and Frederick Vergon – to take the Delaware Grape to its highest levels. Campbell used his homestead – now the Delaware Arts Castle – to become the major seller of Delaware Grapes worldwide, while Vergon served as a supplier for Campbell.
The combination of demand and being one of America’s first native grapes with the versatility to become wine set the stage for “grape fever.”
So grab a glass of Delaware Grape wine and capture your own “grape fever”.
Portions of this story were taken from a story I wrote for “Connect2 OWU” last year, with much of the background for this article came from an article by Delaware County Master Gardener Donna M. for The Ohio State University Extension.
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