🍇 Black Monukka

Black Monukka is a seedless table grape with dark berries, belonging to the cultivated species Vitis vinifera. The VIVC catalogue gives the United States as its country of origin and, using DNA markers, has identified its parents: Ichkimar and Sultana. The berries form no seeds. The variety has 16 synonyms, among them Monukka, Black Monucca and Anja Kernlos, and 8 collections hold it.

According to VIVC, Argentina had 47.93 ha of it in 1991. In 1967 the American breeder Herbert Barrett considered its origin unknown, probably Afghanistan or present-day Pakistan. He called Black Monukka an authentic grape for the connoisseur and wrote that if he were restricted to a single dessert variety, this would probably be his choice, since its combination of qualities is hard to surpass. The flesh is tender yet firm, meaty and crisp; the skin is thin, tightly adherent and free of astringency; the flavour is rich, with an exotic fruity aroma. The berries are reddish-black, cylindrical and slightly below medium size, borne on large, fairly loose, long tapering clusters.

Why it matters to you. Breeders value Black Monukka too: Attika and Pardina descend from it, and in South Africa it was used together with Perlette, Ruby Seedless and Sultana as a parent for breeding seedless table grapes, with the offspring also rated for raisin quality (a study published in 1985). It is one of the varieties on which today's seedless grapes are built.