🍇 Premier

Premier is a white table grape variety from Bulgaria, belonging to the European species Vitis vinifera. According to the VIVC catalogue, its parents are Madeleine Angevine and Muscat Hamburg; this pedigree comes from the breeder or the literature and has not been checked with DNA markers. The passport gives neither the breeder's name nor the years of crossing, the variety has no other names, and the berries have seeds.

The variety is held by three collections, in Bulgaria, France and Slovenia. VIVC also links this passport to Thomas Munson's American variety Carman, whose listed parent is "Premier". However, Ulysses Hedrick writes in The Grapes of New York (1908) that Munson raised Carman in Texas from seed of a wild grape pollinated by Triumph and Herbemont, and that the variety was introduced in 1892; so this is most likely a different variety with the same name.

Why it matters to you. Premier combines two well-known table grapes, Madeleine Angevine and Muscat Hamburg, making it an example of European table grape breeding with a Muscat parent. At the same time, the Carman story shows how easily identical variety names get mixed up even in large catalogues, so pedigrees are worth checking against several sources.