🍇 Winchell

Winchell is an old American table grape with small light-green berries, very early and at the same time good-tasting. It was raised by James Milton Clough in Stamford, Vermont, USA, from a seed of an unknown purple grape, and in 1888 the Ellwanger & Barry nursery of Rochester put it on the market.

According to the breeder's data quoted by the VIVC catalogue, Winchell descends from Vitis labrusca and the cultivated grapevine Vitis vinifera; this pedigree has not been checked with genetic markers. Ulysses Hedrick, in The Grapes of New York (1908), likewise describes it as chiefly labrusca with a slight admixture of vinifera and aestivalis. The same book tells of a mix-up over names: in December 1885 the nursery received the variety from C. E. Winchell, and in 1888 the firm Stephen Hoyt's Sons of Connecticut released a very similar Green Mountain. The authors treated the two as one variety and kept the name published first; VIVC lists Green Mountain as a synonym.

According to Hedrick, Winchell ripens very early, sometimes even before Moore Early, and was the standard early green grape for New York State. The vine is vigorous, hardy, healthy and very productive, and the fruit keeps and ships well. Its faults are loose clusters with a large shoulder, ripe berries that tend to drop, and a thin skin that can crack. The variety is kept in 3 collections, and according to VIVC, Ontario descends from it.

Why it matters to you. Winchell shows that an early, tasty variety does not always become widespread: small green berries were less popular than black and red ones. If you come across the name Green Mountain in old catalogues, it most likely means the same grape, and Winchell's story explains where the two names came from.