I recall someone mentioning Faith at some point. I am getting some fruits on my young Hope and Joy plants now. Hope is a pretty decent white grape, similar to Thompson Seedless in taste but with smaller and more elongated fruits. If they get bigger as the plant matures it will be a good grape for my family. Joy is relatively less exciting, its not all that sweet or flavorful so far, especially as it was supposed to be the most flavorful of all of them. I don’t think my Gratitude has any fruit this year, and I didn’t plant Faith.
I am currently getting New York Muscats, they are many times superior in flavor. But they have seeds and some of that Concord slipskin texture. For cooking they are excellent, once I made some jam from them and I still remember that flavor many years later.
Jupiter and Faith were both very productive for me in their 2nd year in the ground. Or, I should say, they were very productive for some critter. I got 1 bunch from each of them, and a few assorted grapes, as they ripened.
Neither was bad for black rot, though there were a few shaded Faiths near the ground that got it. I gave them a spray of MFF, when I did the peaches in late June. Jupiter produced a perfect cluster last year (right after I planted it) without any fungicide.
In terms of taste, I think I like Jupiter a bit better, as it is a more interesting muscat flavor. The brix is also a bit higher (16.5 vs ~15), though the Jupiter’s I had this year weren’t fully ripe (~14 brix- it was last year’s that got 16.5). I’m not sure how the critters missed the Faiths that I picked the other day. They seemed fully ripe and tasted like the black grapes you can get in the grocery store (which can be pretty good, as these were). The individual grapes were a bit smaller.
I also have Neptune, Joy, Gratitude, and Hope. The first two have a single cluster of grapes, which isn’t ripe yet. I don’t have high hopes for sampling it this year. If I am lucky I may be able to sneak a grape or two off it when they first start to ripen.
Gratitude had significant die-back this past winter and while it has put on a ton of growth (some of it onto a nearby apricot which I need to prune off), it doesn’t have any grapes this year. Faith also had some tip die-back, but it didn’t slow it down much at all.
My Faith grapes from two days ago. They were bagged in a zip-lock and had 14-15 brix:
I have Hope, Joy, and Jupiter. Scott, we either have a different “Joy” grape, or our conditions are vastly different. My joy grapes are extremely flavorful. Almost shockingly so. To me, they have an intense grape candy type flavor. I really like it, but others are a bit shocked at the intense flavor. If they are left on the vine longer, they lose some intensity. The grapes are very small, but overall, I really like them.
Belatedly following up on this thread, I kept eating a few of my Hope and Joy in the “hope they would lead to joy” (snork). Well, they did! Almost a month after I first started eating them they finished, and they kept getting better. They also sized up some more. Hope ended up being really fantastic, almost as crunchy as a Thompson seedless and with a heck of a lot more sugar and flavor than the store version. Joy ended up being very good and I think it will be better next year given how small the vine is now. Overall these guys have moved to the top of my grapes list for fresh eating, I think my family will actually eat them. For cooking the Golden Muscat and New York Muscat will be better, they are one notch higher in flavor. I have a huge Swenson Red vine, it runs 15’ on the trellis, but nobody wants to eat them so I had to make jam this year. It was good, but the Muscat jam is much better.
New York muscat is in ground here, in Qc. I planted it last spring. I will protect it under snow cover this winter and we’ll see if it survives our winters. Then, I’ll see if it can ripen properly in my short season, growing agains’t my south facing brick wall. I’m glad to read you like it a lot. Did you get fruits from Gratitude?
There is a newer grape from U Arkansas that I find very interesting: Compassion. It is suppose to be a crunchy green seedless grape with muscat aroma…! Skin is said to be more noticable than California grapes, but I don’t mind that at all. I hope it will be available in Canada some time soon. Jupiter is suppose to be grown commercially in Ontario (Niagara region) very soon.
My New York Muscat survived its first winter just fine. This winter (2nd), we had much colder temperatures, so we’ll see if it makes it . The vine is on the ground, under a geotextile insulation tarp, agains’t a south facing wall. I added 2 U Ark cepages: Jupiter and Venus!
. The vine is on the ground, under a geotextile insulation tarp, agains’t a south facing wall. I added 2 U Ark cepages: Jupiter and Venus!