Scuppernong Grape

Scuppernong is a bronze-colored cultivar of muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia), and holds a real, well-documented distinction as the first grape variety actively cultivated in what is now the United States. It traces back to the "Mother Vine" on Roanoke Island, North Carolina — a real, still-living and still-fruiting grapevine estimated at over 400 years old, among the oldest continuously cultivated grapevines in the country, possibly first tended by Indigenous communities before European colonists arrived. English explorers sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh documented wild grapevines so abundant along the Carolina coast in 1584 that they described the air as "perfumed" with their scent. The variety was formally named after the nearby Scuppernong River in 1811. Real, specific documented history connects it to Thomas Jefferson, who ordered a 30-gallon barrel of scuppernong juice in 1823. It was designated the official state fruit of North Carolina in 2001. The fruit is large, thick-skinned, with a sweet, musky flavor and large seeds — genuinely distinct from typical thin-skinned table grapes.