Niagra GrapeNIAGARA

A proprietary creation of the Niagara Grape Company of Lockport, New York, the Niagara Grape was long a favorite white grape for home growers.  It had three obvious qualities that led to its mass appeal: huge berries, appealing fragrance when ripe, and extraordinary vitality.  It was created in the the late 1870s from a cross between two hybrids, the Concord and the Cassady. It premiered commercially in 1882. 

The notion of biological material being made a mode of property emerged around grapes, because they were clonally propagated.  One literally had the same planted being produced in the dissemination of cuttings.  (Sexual propagation produces different offspring.)  The Niagara grape is perhaps most interesting in the world history of viticulture because it was the grape in the United States around which property claims and rights were asserted with the greatest force during the 19th century.  The Niagara Grape company pioneered the sort of control of dissemination, promotion, and monetization.  The terms upon which vignerons engaged with the Niagra Grape Company were as follows:  "We deliver the Vines at the Express office here, well packed, at $1.50 each, payable as follows: five percent (i.e. 7 1/2 cents per vine) down; balance only from one-half the net proceeds of fruit each year after they begin to bear, until paid, with this proviso, that if such one-half of fruit shall not make full payment for vines with ten years from date, the contract will become void by limitation; we to have all the wood to and including 1888." [Niagara White Grape Company, Sole Proprietor of the White Grape, "Niagara", (Lockport, NY, 1888), 2.]

J. J. Thomas, editor the Country Gentleman (September 9, 1880)  magazine, was among the first to describe the fruit.  His characterization suggests the grounds for the variety's popularity and rapid adoption: "One of its most striking characteristics is the great vigor of its growth.  Shoots of the present season, half an inch in diameter and fifteen feet or more long were common.  The great productiveness of the vine, and the size and beauty of the bunches and berries were conspicuous qualities.  The leaves are thick, distinctly lobed, and hang long on the vines. The branches often measure six inches long; they are compact, uniform and handsome, and the berries are three-fourths of an inch in diameter, light greenish yellow, the fruit ripening as early as the Hartford, but continuing longer, and they are much superior in quality to the Concord."

The grape came into wide use as a white wine grape, a grape juice variety, for jellies and table consumption, though it must be said that other white grapes had a more nuanced and lucious taste.  The Niagara cold tolerate temperatures down to -15 farenheit, and did well in the cooler elevated regions of the South.  When planted in lowland areas they felll victim to downy mildew.  The Niagara remained a widely planted grape until supplanted by Vitis vinefera varieties in the mid-20th century.  It remains widely available from nurseries.

Image:  Ulysses Hedrick, Grapes of New York.

David S. Shields