@Auburn Which variety do you have that you consider to be your best juice/jelly muscadine?
I planted a Carlos vine from a local garden center a couple of weeks ago that I read on Ison’s makes a fantastic wine. I probably won’t use it for wine but I’m hoping that I will like the juice/jelly from it. Paid $30 for it so I better like it. Planted it on my 24’X12’X10’ arbor. The Concord vine that was on it died over the winter.
I’m sorry but I don’t grow any of my varieties with the intent to make juice/jelly so my experience is limited. All my muscadines are intended for fresh/frozen consumption. With that said I give my neighbors muscadines and some of them make jelly or wine. I forgot to mention that we occasionally make cobblers with the seedless muscadines.
Well, please let me ask this - what is the sweetest variety that you have?
Black Beauty can get very sweet on good years when we don’t have excess rain. Hall tends to be the favorite of most people who try all my varieties. I only got a few Paulk last year and if I was starting over I would give it more consideration. It is big and sweet, and being perfect flowered It will probable carry a heavy crop each year.
Big Red is arguably the sweetest. It would not make good wine as there is not enough acid to balance out the sweetness. It would make a good blend if a higher acid/tart variety was blended with Big Red juice.
Greg Ison states that Sugargate is the sweetest. He doesn’t list the sugar content as opposed to Big Red which he lists as having 20%. However, he does state that if he was to leave this world and that he could only have one last muscadine to eat, it would be Sugargate.
Makes me want to plant a Sugargate.
The only reason that I would want to make wine out of muscadines would be to use it in canning pears. 8 years or so ago I canned pears using Sweet Red wine. Turned out much too strong-tasting pears and then then later tried a Sparkling Rose wine that was much better, although I can’t say that it was better than just using apple cider vinegar. Certainly, more expensive.
I not getting many pears these days. Have you ever heard of canning apples with wine? I guess it would be possible to can muscadines with muscadine wine…
That sounds really good.
I’ve eaten sugargate grown by a friend in Birmingham Alabama. It is a small berry, very sweet, but does not have the “melting pulp” trait carried by others from B.O. Fry’s breeding work. When Big Red was first released in 1988, it was touted as 27% sugar. I don’t know why they lowered it in recent years. I purchased vines in 1988 and still have one of them growing at my Grandmother’s house.
Does anyone have the Noble vine? Ison’s writes that it is the standard for making red muscadine wine. I’m thinking that it is probably good for juice and jelly too,
Is it possible to graft a muscadine vine to a different variety?
I had Noble about 30 years ago. It may be good for wine, but it is not good for fresh eating. I was not making wine at the time.
Muscadine can be grafted but generally not worth the effort to do so. Rooted cuttings are too easy to make.
This is what is going on at my place. I’m going into the third year at this location and the vines are loaded with buds/flowers (Hall, Oh My, and Black Beauty). The self fertile varieties have been very dependable about being pollinated but the female Black Beauty can be less dependable. This go around I planted Black Beauty between a Hall and Lane (2nd year) so I’m hoping this arrangement will help encourage it to be a more dependable fruiter. Scarlett (female) is one year old and has been an aggressive grower but it only has three bud clusters. Looks like it will be a little slower to set a good crop but I sure would like to get a little taste sample.