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LIVING HISTORY
One of the World's Oldest Fruit
Welcome to the historical world of The Mother Vine – living history encased in a scuppernong grape vine over 400 years old and still producing crops of succulent bronze colored fruits on Roanoke Island near the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
You can easily and inexpensively own a part of American’s living history with a vine rooted from a cutting taken directly from The Mother Vine. Easy and Simple to plant, grow and maintain, especially in the South, as this species is indigenous to the southeastern United States. This vine within 2-3 years can provide delicious and healthy fruit, shade, decorative yard and fence foliage or a focal point to understand an important part of our history dating back to 1584.
The first explorers, under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth, in 1584 sailed up the Roanoke Sound, near the Atlantic Ocean, and recorded in their ships journal:
The land…so full of grapes, as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them…I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found…
There is legend that Sir Walter Raleigh ordered the wild growing white grape vines gathered and set out by the colonists left behind on Roanoke Island in 1587. This colony of early settlers (about 114 men, women and children) had mysteriously disappeared when a supply vessel returned three years later. These events provided the nucleus to the present day theatrical outdoor drama “The Lost Colony.” This splendid, professionally performed drama, written by Paul Green, has become the longest continuously running outdoor drama in the United States. It is performed in Manteo, North Carolina near the original colony on Roanoke Island.
The scuppernong grape is a sport from the wild muscadine (Vitus rotundifolia). A sport is a spontaneous mutation of a plant. Its color is generally bronze-green and has over the centuries carried various names: The Big White Grape, The White Grape, Sir Walter Raleigh, Hickman, Roanoke and Scuppernong. By the Early 1800s the “Scuppernong Grape” was the most prevalent and accepted name for this fruit that has multiple uses: a sweet and tasty fruit for eating, fresh grape juice to drink, juice to make jams and jellies, and the essential ingredients to produce a wine with a sweet, musky, fruity flavor.
The Mother Vine continues to thrive today growing next to The Mother Vineyard Road in Manteo, North Carolina, a few paces from the Roanoke Sound. It densely covers an old wooden arbor about thirty feet wide and one hundred feet long. Its main trunk is a massive gnarl of huge, aged commingled vines about six or seven feet in diameter.
By local accounts The Mother Vine at one time covered an arbor almost two acres in size and was the main source of grape juice for The Mother Vineyard Winery located a few hundred feet away.
The “Great Big White Grape” along with its parent, the black or purple muscadine, provided the juice in the 1800s to enable North Carolina to become the largest wine producing state in the Union.
Adding to the scuppernong’s luster in North Carolina’s economic crown was its international recognition in 1900 and 1904 – first at the Paris Exposition in 1900 when Garrett and Company’s scuppernong wine won a medal and then the remarkable achievement in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis when Paul Garrett’s Special Champagne (made from the scuppernong) received the Grand Prize from among several hundred entries from California, New York, Italy, France and Argentina.
Paul Garrett (1864-1940), a native North Carolinian was a strong proponent for the scuppernong and became a wealthy man with his vineyards and wineries which produced the nationwide favorite wine for decades under the label “Virginia Dare”, a name appropriately connected to Roanoke Island and The Mother Vine, as Virginia Dare was the first English child born in America in 1587 on Roanoke Island.
Is there fact or fancy in declaring The Mother Vine being over 400 years old? Well, it’s hard to prove and harder to disprove. Who planted it and when? We don’t know for sure, but one writer William C. Etheridge with family ties to The Mother Vine as far back as the late 1700s and early 1800s wrote a pamphlet “The Mystery of Mother Vineyard” forcibly and credibly arguing that it was probably planted by the settlers of the Lost Colony in 1587-1589.
A visitor to the site of The Mother Vine today will surely come away with a deep sense of awe and respect that he/she has seen and touched one of the oldest living fruit plants on the face of the earth – whether that is 200 or 400 years old.
The scuppernong obtained another jewel in its crown when the North Carolina General Assembly in 2001 officially designated the Scuppernong as the state fruit of North Carolina.
Adding to The Mother Vine’s allure are many important health benefits. The muscadine family has recently been scientifically shown to contain resveratrol (a reducer of heart attacks and strokes) as well as elegiac acid, a strong anti-oxidant, that inhibits cancer. This family of grapes contains twice the resveratrol element as the regular vinifera grape. As far back as 1885 Scuppernong brandy was recommended to druggists for its medicinal properties.
Recent studies have tended to show resveratrol may reduce cardiac disease and reduce LDL as well as IDL (bad cholesterol). Wow!
Why wait? Plant your own Mothervine. While waiting for it to mature, check out the North Carolina Wineries which supply muscadine and scuppernong wines. They even have a non-alcoholic muscadine wine. Drink for your health.
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