Grape

one of the oldest fruits known to humankind and the most cultivated, yet its origin is uncertain. More than likely, grapes emerged from Asia Minor, around the Caspian Sea, or Armenia. Grapes were grown in Asia more than 7,000 years ago. Some grape residues were discovered in Egyptian tombs dating back to 375 BC. The Greeks and the Romans used to drink it in abundance and wrote a great deal about its salutary influence under the cults of Dionysus, Bacchus and Osiris for the Egyptians. At the fall of the Roman Empire, the Gauls took over the cultivation of grapes, and even later the monasteries took over.

The grape family includes three main varieties. Vitis vinifera is the European variety, the most cultivated (95 percent of grapes are from this variety), with about 1,000 subvarieties. The North American variety is split into two subvarieties, the Vitis labrusca and the Vitis rondundifolia. The black Concord grape, the green Niagara grape and the red Catawba grape are varieties of V. labrusca, and the Delaware (red) is a cross between V. inifera and V. labrusca. The third group is known as the French Hybrids, which originally came from the Vitis vinifera. In 1863, the Vitis vinifera suffered a deadly attack of a louse (Phylloxera vastatrix) that feeds on the roots of the vines and destroys them completely. The American V. labrusca was immune to the disease, and the European vineyards were saved thanks to the grafting of the two species. Very few countries are immune to the phylloxera; the ones that are include Chile, Cyprus, South Australia and some parts of Hungary and Austria, as well as a few acres in Oregon. The largest producers of grapes in the world are Italy, France and Spain.

The fruits are erroneously called grains, but they're actually berries. A cluster of grapes can hold from six to 300 berries, depending on the variety, and every berry will have between one and four seeds, unless they're from a seedless variety.

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