The grapes of the South

Seven grapes worth knowing

These are the grapes that turn up most often across the wineries in our directory. They do not replace the European wine grapes — Vitis vinifera names like Chardonnay and Cabernet are just as common here — they sit alongside them and give Southern wine its own accent.

Several of the seven — Chambourcin, Vidal Blanc and Traminette — are hybrids, bred by crossing European vines with hardy American ones. Hybrids once carried a lesser reputation, but in the region's heat and humidity they are quality workhorses, not compromises. Muscadine is a native species all its own, and Norton is the outlier that proves the point — descended from native American vines, yet a serious dry red.

One habit worth keeping the whole way down: each profile describes how a grape is often made here, not any one winery's bottle. The same grape can be bone dry at one cellar and frankly sweet at the next, and the front label seldom tells you which — its residual sugar is usually invisible until you taste it. So use the dry-to-sweet range below as a starting point, and ask the person pouring.

Muscadine

The Southeast's own grape. Muscadine is a thick-skinned native American species — Vitis rotundifolia — that shrugs off the heat, humidity and Pierce's disease that flatten European vines, and it has been grown and made into artisan wines, juice and jelly here for generations.²⁷

In the glass it is unmistakable: widely described as musky or "foxy," a deep, grapey perfume unlike anything in a European wine, and most often made sweet. Dry muscadines do exist and are worth seeking out, but the grape's reputation rests on its fuller, sweeter side. These are fruit-forward, drink-now wines rather than bottles built to age. If you think you dislike sweet wine, taste a pour before you write the whole grape off — the range is wider than the reputation.

Scuppernong

You will also see Scuppernong on Southern labels — the bronze muscadine, a greenish-bronze cultivar of the very same species, historically the region's prized table grape.⁷ It is made much as the darker muscadines are: usually sweet, always fragrant.

Chambourcin

A French-American hybrid red and one of the region's most dependable. It is deeply coloured — a teinturier grape, meaning its juice runs red or pink rather than clear — aromatic and very strongly flavoured.³

It is made either fully dry or with a moderate touch of residual sugar, and some bottlings are so intensely flavoured they are happily served slightly chilled.³ Expect it, generally, to be medium in body with moderate tannin and fresh acidity — an easy-going red that rarely asks much of you.

Norton

The South's benchmark serious dry red, and a genuine curiosity. Norton is descended from native American vines, yet it lacks the "foxy" flavours of its native cousins — which is exactly what makes it, in the words of its own record, "quite suitable for making dry wine."¹ The grape is darkly pigmented, a deep blue-purple.¹

It is widely described as full-bodied, high in acidity and firm in tannin, with dark fruit and a peppery spice. It is almost always made dry, and where most Southern wines are made to drink now, Norton's structure supports some cellaring — the region's readiest candidate for laying a bottle down.

Viognier

Virginia named Viognier its signature white grape in 2011, and it has become a Southern signature more broadly since. It is floral and perfumed — think peach, pear and a note of violets — and can be full-bodied and, in its own description, "lush, soft," with notably low acidity.⁶

It is almost always made dry, and it is best enjoyed young: its defining floral aromas fade after a few years in bottle.⁶ That low acidity is worth knowing going in — in the warmth of the Southeast a Viognier can taste especially broad and soft, all body and perfume, which is either its charm or its limit depending on the day and the pour.

Vidal Blanc

A hybrid white, and one of the region's most versatile grapes. It is very fruity, with aromas of grapefruit and pineapple and a moderate-to-high acidity that keeps it fresh.⁴

That acidity lets it stretch across a wide range: crisp and off-dry, through sweet dessert wines, all the way to ice wine — its thick skin suits that last, coldest style especially well. It has little ageing potential, so it is a wine to enjoy young and fresh rather than to keep.⁴

Petit Manseng

A small, thick-skinned white with an unusual gift: it can build a very high sugar level while holding on to its acidity.⁵ That balance is what lets it be made two very different ways.

Bone dry, it is bright and stone-fruited; left to hang into winter, it becomes a rich late-harvest dessert wine that stays lively rather than cloying, because the acidity keeps pace with the sweetness. In Virginia it is the second-most-planted white grape and a repeat award-winner, and it is finding the same footing across the wider region.⁵

Traminette

An aromatic white with a spicy, floral character reminiscent of Gewürztraminer — rose petal and a hint of lychee — and most often made off-dry. That gentle touch of sweetness is deliberate: it softens the grape's perfume and makes it an easy, food-friendly pour, particularly against a little spice on the plate. Approachable and forgiving, it is a good glass to hand someone still finding their way between sweet and dry.