North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

There is a grape tasting in the recent CRFG newsletter and I was surprised to see both NY Muscat and Muscat Hamburg near the bottom (Muscat Hamburg was at the bottom in fact).  What I think this says is these dark-skinned muscat grapes do not fit the mold of what most people think is a grape these days.  Jupiter was not in the tasting but my guess is it would have done better due to greater firmness and less muscat flavor, but it still would not have been near the top.  I had been recommending muscat grapes to people since they are my favorites, but these ratings made be pause a bit on that.

Scott

PS here are the actual ratings if anyone is curious:

 1 Red Flame 

 2 Fantasy 

 3 Reliance 

 4 Suffolk Red 

 5 Interlaken 

 6 Himrod 

 7 Venus

 8 Muscat St. Vallier 

 9 Golden Muscat 

 10 Cardinal 

 11 Marquis 

 12 Captivator 

 13 Jefferson 

 14 Brilliant 

 15 Buffalo 

 16 Iona 

 17 Alden 

 18 NY Muscat 

 19 Mars 

 20 Herbert 

 21 Muscat Hamburg

Jupiter is firmer, and the vines are more productive than NY Muscat, 
but NY Muscat has more muscat flavor.
-Lon Rombough