Delaware Grape

Delaware grape has a real, genuinely confusing naming history worth clearing up directly: despite the name, it is not connected to the US state of Delaware at all. It most likely originated in the garden of Paul Henri Mallet-Prevost, a Swiss aristocrat who had emigrated to Frenchtown, New Jersey, sometime in the early 1800s. Prevost gave cuttings to a grower named Benjamin Heath, which is why "Heath" survives as a real, documented old synonym for the variety, and Heath's neighbor, newspaper editor Abraham Thompson, began growing and researching the grape around 1849. Thompson contacted the Ohio Pomological Society in 1851, which traced the variety back to the Prevost farm, but Prevost had died before the connection was confirmed. When Thompson introduced the grape to horticultural magazine editor A.J. Downing, Downing named it "Delaware" simply because the sample had been mailed from Delaware, Ohio — not the state — and the name stuck permanently once the variety was formally added to the American Pomological Society's grape list in the 1850s. DNA analysis in 2015 confirmed the variety is a genuine three-way hybrid of Vitis aestivalis, Vitis labrusca, and true European Vitis vinifera, which explains its notably mild flavor compared to fully American labrusca grapes. It became especially popular in Japan after being imported there in 1872, where it remains widely grown today, particularly in Yamagata Prefecture, and is often chemically treated to produce a seedless version sold as a gift fruit.