Lake Emerald is one of the best tasting grapes I have ever tried. I can only describe it as tasting kind of like white wine. The sugar and acidity were perfect on it. The downside is the berries are tiny and seeded and do not store well. It grows well without spray but didn’t produce for me in south florida (it produced in one year in Ohio). The lack of winter was a problem. You would need to be in central or northern florida or above to have enough winter for it. And it grows super fast like a weed, but once it reaches a decent size it hits a wall and doesn’t grow. Every time it did this I dig it up and it has a small root system that just doesn’t grow beyond a certain point. It also doesn’t grow well in 98 degree or hotter days. A lot of people grow it for the disease resistance but the tiny berries combined with some growth issues I just pulled it up and gave up on it. It makes a good wine, but the wine tends to oxidize and go bad so only good for blending a small amount of lake emerald juice.
Suwannee is 25% lake emerald in its ancestry (on both sides). Leaves are similar to Lake Emerald but a bit thinner. But it has large berries. I haven’t tried them yet. It is used mostly as a wine grape though is a good fresh eating grape. I got a rooted cutting last year. It grows fast, similar to lake emerald, maybe slightly slower. But has a little disease on the leaves, not a lot.
Daytona is mostly vinifera and hard to grow due to disease. I have some seedlings of BD whatever it is Daytona x Stover which has better disease resistance than either parent and is a good table grape though not as good as Daytona. Dunstan’s Dream is one of the best table grapes for Florida. It’s about 3% muscadine with other native stuff, a complex hybrid. Said to have very good tasting grapes (with native flavors) though it is a slip skin seeded grape. It has good pierce tolerance. I have some seeds from some other muscadine hybrids. They are about 3% muscadine but do pretty well here in south florida. A small amount of disease like Suwannee but overall pretty good.
Muench is said to be a good fresh eating table grape for the south.
Orlando Seedless handles the heat and humidity well and is pierce tolerant, grows fast. But the berries are small and it is prone to fungus, so needs spray. The only thing special about it is that its seedless and the berries taste good. If it wasn’t seedless no one would know about it because there are better selections. Though, as I said, it does grow well in the south if sprayed for fungus. A lot of varieties just don’t grow in hot weather not even considering pierce disease or fungus. They don’t die, they just don’t grow when its hot.
As a whole native grapes and native hybrids don’t store well. This makes it hard to grow them commercially or throw them in your fridge for a few weeks. It’s pretty much fresh eating or eat them the next day after being picked. Daytona is probably the only one that will store and ship well, but its too hard to grow.
Verdelet is also a good table grape with some pierce disease but in the long run probably will decline over the years in the south as its not fully adapted to the deep south, probably doesn’t have enough pierce tolerance. They have a hybrid CN1-90 which is Suwannee x Verdelet produces a good table grape like Verdelet but a bit better adapted to the south.
Villard blanc is unlikely to survive in the south long term (probably due to other issues besides pierce disease, and though it has good pierce tolerance it’s not as high as some varieties), and Seyval Blanc doesn’t have enough pierce tolerance for the south, though you might grow it for a long time before being infected. It’s primarily a wine grape though. I have a Seyval blanc x shuttleworthii. It was doing well with the swampy rainy season but doesn’t seem to like dry weather in this sand that its planted in. CA8-15 is Villard blanc x shuttleworthii. It’s a good fresh eating grape that grows well without spray, though in south florida it is susceptible to rust fungus and may be damaged by late frost in colder regions.
Taris Burgundy is said to be a muscadine hybrid, but in reality is shuttleworthii x a vinifera wine grape. It is good for fresh eating, but the texture is not as crisp as some. It makes good wine. Gets a small amount of disease but overall pretty good. I have some crosses of taris that are more disease resistant than taris though there still is a tiny amount of disease on them.
