🍇 Concord

Concord is an American grape variety with black berries, grown both for the table and for processing. It was bred by the farmer Ephraim Bull in the town of Concord, Massachusetts; according to the US Library of Congress, this happened around 1849.

The VIVC catalogue classes Concord as an interspecific cross: by DNA markers its parents are the variety Catawba and the wild North American species Vitis labrusca. It is labrusca that gives the berries their distinctive musky aroma, easy to recognise in grape juice.

In the United States it is a major grape. According to the OIV, Concord covered 34,000 ha in 2015, or 7.7 % of the country's vineyards. VIVC also records 1,818 ha in the Canadian province of Ontario (1991) and plantings in Brazil, where the OIV counts 2,000 ha.

Concord owes its fame not to wine but to juice and jelly. The Library of Congress recalls that it was valued as a table and juice grape, and that the physician Thomas Welch made unfermented grape juice from it for communion. The jelly in classic American peanut butter sandwiches is also Concord. Dozens of varieties descend from it, among them Niagara and Worden.

Why it matters to you. The typical "foxy" taste of American grape juice is mostly Concord. If you like dry European-style wines, Concord wine will seem unusual. Grape juice that has not fermented contains no alcohol, so it is fine for children.