Muscadine
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| Vitis rotundifolia |
Muscadines (Vitis rotundifolia) are a grapevine species native to the present-day southeastern United States that has been extensively cultivated since the 16th Century. They are well adapted to their native warm and humid climate; they need fewer chilling hours than better known varieties and they thrive on summer heat.
Muscadines range from bronze to dark purple to black in color when ripe. Some consider the skins too tough to be edible. To eat the fruit raw, these people bite a small hole in the skin, then suck the sweet insides into their mouth, taking care to spit out the seeds embedded in it. Though mostly used fresh, muscadines have also been locally used in making home-brewed wine, juice, and jelly.
Although sharing the genus Vitis with the other grapevine species, muscadines belong to a separate subgenus, Muscadinia (the other grapevine species belong to Euvitis), and some have suggested giving it standing as a genus of its own. Some taxonomists have also suggested splitting two additional species off from Vitis rotundifolia<i>: <i>Vitis munsoniana and Vitis popenoei. All have 40 chromosomes, rather than 38, are generally not cross-compatibile with other "Vitis" species, and most hybrids between the subgenera are sterile. A few, however, are at least moderately fertile, and have been used in breeding. The cultivar 'Southern Home', released by the University of Florida, contains both muscadine and Euvitis in its background.
Unlike most cultivated grapevines, many muscadine cultivars are pistillate, and require a pollenizer to set fruit. A few, however, such as 'Carlos' and 'Noble', are perfect-flowered, and will produce fruit with their own pollen. They may also serve as pollenizers for pistillate cultivars, as well.
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[edit] Wine
Muscadines have been used for making commercial fine wines and port wines dating back to the 16th Century in and around St. Augustine, Florida. Today, there are vineyards throughout the Southeast vinting muscadine wines ranging from low to high quality. The typical muscadine wine is quite sweet and is therefore oftentimes considered a dessert wine, although some drier varieties exist. The term scuppernong refers to a large bronze type of muscadine originally grown in North Carolina; it is also used in making wine.
While not one of the most widely marketed varietals produced, the visibility of muscadine wine has benefited from the discovery that it appears to provide greater amounts of antioxidants than many better-known red wines. In particular, Muscadine wines (both red and white) contain over five times more resveratrol than ordinary red wines: more than 40 mg/L compared to between 0.2 and 5.8 mg/L.<ref>Ector BJ, Magee JB, Hegwood CP, Coign MJ. Resveratrol Concentration in Muscadine Berries, Juice, Pomace, Purees, Seeds, and Wines. http://www.ajevonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/1/57</ref><ref> Gu X, Creasy L, Kester A, et al., Capillary electrophoretic determination of resveratrol in wines. J Agric Food Chem 47:3323-3277, 1999</ref>
Because grape vines synthesize resveratrol as a defense, it has been claimed that the use of pesticides greatly reduces the production of resveratrol.[1]
[edit] Other Products
Other traditional Southern US muscadine-derived food products are readily available: jelly, preserves, syrup, and sauce. The fresh grape is available in season, September and October.[2] The juice is available, white and colored. Raisins are used to make the wine (scuppernong), but are not generally available. Pomace/puree [3] and sauce[4] might be the most concentrated forms as a source of resveratrol.
Although muscadine-derived products are sold as source of resveratrol, they have become eclipsed by knotweed, a cheaper and more concentrated source. Often grape derivatives are included in supplements for the sake of appearance, with knotweed supplying the bulk of the resveratrol.[5]
[edit] Resveratrol
Resveratrol is produced by several plants, apparently for its antifungal properties. It is found in widely varying amounts in grapes (primarily the skins). Ordinary non-muscadine Red wine contains between 0.2 and 5.8 mg/L <ref> Gu X, Creasy L, Kester A, et al., Capillary electrophoretic determination of resveratrol in wines. J Agric Food Chem 47:3323-3277, 1999</ref>, depending on the grape variety, whilst white wine has much less - the reason being that red wine is fermented with the skins, allowing the wine to absorb the resveratrol, whereas white wine is fermented after the skin has been removed. Wines produced from muscadine grapes, however, both red and white, may contain more than 40 mg/L.<ref> Ector BJ, Magee JB, Hegwood CP, Coign MJ. Resveratrol Concentration in Muscadine Berries, Juice, Pomace, Purees, Seeds, and Wines. http://www.ajevonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/1/57</ref>. [6]
In grapes, resveratrol is found primarily in the skin and seeds. This is particularly true for muscadine grapes, whose skin and seeds have about one hundred times the concentration as the pulp.[7] The amount found in grape skins also varies with the grape cultivar, its geographic origin, and exposure to fungal infection. The amount of fermentation time a wine spends in contact with grape skins is an important determinant of its resveratrol content.[8]
"All of the muscadine table wines sampled had greater trans and cis resveratrol concentrations than any other wines sampled. The muscadine table wines varied between 9.2 and 31.9 mg/L cis resveratrol and between 4.9 and 13.4 mg/L trans resveratrol." [9]
Muscadine berries and seeds have substantial amounts of resveratrol. Concentrations for the berries without seeds range from 2.7 to 23.5 ppm (parts per million) dwt. Seeds contained between 24.5 and 62.2 ppm dwt resveratrol. (The high seed concentration of resveratrol could be significant during red wine making when the fermenting wine is in contact with the seed.) Muscadine pomace, the solids left after pressing, contained 18 to 84 ppm dwt. A puree made from the pomace with the seeds removed contained 10 to 62 ppm dwt. Muscadine wine was reported to have from 0.7 to 1.9 mg/L resveratrol for red wines and 0.3 to 0.9 mg/L resveratrol for white wine. (These values are somewhat low compared to other reported values for muscadine wines, but that might be due to measuring only the trans form and not including the cis isomer.) For juices, resveratrol was found in concentrations ranging from 2.6 to 12.8 mg/L. [10]
[edit] References
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