My childhood house in Virginia was wrapped in grapevines; they grew so thick across the back that they blocked out the light and threatened to pull the whole structure down. They were, our mother told us, Scuppernongs, and their fruit was yellowy green, sour, and tough as hell. Every fall they plopped to the ground like sticky hail, blanketing the brick walkways and attracting bees and flies, and small mammals hungry for snacks. At night, the possums liked to hang upside down and gaze unblinking through the windows while they gorged themselves on grapes like marsupial zombies.
As the grapes ripened—you knew it when a tinge of bronze set in—my sister and I would pluck them from their fat bunches, squeeze the skins and pop the fruit into our mouths via the navel left where they came off the stem. The skins were rubbery, pretty much inedible. Inside, the gelatinous globes harbored hard, tannic seeds, so you had to work the whole thing around in your mouth with your tongue and teeth until the seeds were liberated from the fruit and you could shoot them out, b.b. gun style, through pursed lips. Sometimes, to challenge ourselves, we chewed handfuls of intact grapes, only to be left with unwieldy wads that had to be launched, mid-play, into the bushes. “They sting the corners of my mouth,” my sister would complain, making a face, and we would move on, leaving the masticated fiber to the ants.
If there had been an internet in those days, our family would have been busy googling Scuppernong recipes, but there wasn’t, so we had to rely on lore and our own imaginations, perhaps an old church cookbook. “They grow wild all over the South,” said our Mom flatly, after gleaning this tidbit from an older relative. My guess is she was just beginning to fathom how unruly and tenacious the vines would come to be, and her ambivalence toward them was audible. Determined to make use of them and temporarily possessed of a back-to-the-land fervor (the same halfhearted impulse that had led her to join a vegetable co-op and to attend a single La Leche League meeting), she told us she would make jam if we would pick them. Homemade jam was something beyond our wildest suburban dreams, and kitchen projects with her were rare and treasured, so my sister and I parked ourselves in the sun, the smell of fermenting juice and the hum of bees all around us, until our shoulders were pink and the bowls were full. She’d purchased a flat of small jam jars from the hardware store, and they clinked together and cut the afternoon light into clean slivers. She took down my dad’s tallest stock pot, into which we tipped our bowls. Our harvest boiled for the better part of the day with heaps of sugar, releasing an ever more pungent steam, and in the evening she strained the must into jars. Even after the resulting syrup had cooled, it never succeeded in jelling. A second attempt failed to achieve the proper thickness, as well. Worse: the color of the syrup was problematic, resembling the urine specimen of a critically dehydrated person.
We never did figure out how to coax the flavor out of that fruit. One Saturday, in a last ditch effort to redeem it, my sister and I found our calling as vintners, which I think more than anything was an attempt to capture our Dad’s attention and heart. We knew what time was wine time, and where to find him. After squeezing a few grapes into a waxed paper cup and swirling them around with cold water, we presented him with his afternoon refreshment. He laughed.
“You need to age wine. Otherwise it’s not wine.”
The next day, we started in the morning and let the cup of watered-down grape slurry sit in the refrigerator all day, until we were certain it had clocked enough time to qualify as wine. We had even sprinkled a little sugar in the mix, as our mother had explained to us the basics of fermentation and we hoped a pinch would get things going. Like sommeliers in a cartoon, we handed him the cup with exaggerated ceremony, the waxed paper by this time soggy and wobbly. He took a distracted sip, pretended to savor it, and then poured himself a glass of real wine from a bottle.
Each year the vines seemed to grow hungrier and more resistant to pruning, and each year when the fallen grapes coated the ground with a tacky pulp, my parents’ curses became more venomous. Eventually, the tendrils ate into the mortar between the bricks, to the point that one day, Dad took a saw to their trunks and peeled the vines free in great green sheets that revealed birds’ nests and forgotten toys, and the back of the house suddenly looked naked and featureless, the soil around it dry and bereft where nothing had been able to grow in the deep shadows beneath the foliage. My sister and I watched, forlorn, as he dragged the truck-sized tangle down the driveway to the curb, where it sat, shrinking as the leaves wilted and the fall rains tamped it down, until it was unrecognizable and the garbage truck came and carted it away. In the proportion of childhood, something major had shifted and was lost, but just as quickly, the season passed and we moved on.
The house is now for sale, and the vines were long ago replaced by fig trees, which have taken on a life of their own and fatten the squirrels every fall. I now live in New York, where I’ve never seen Scuppernongs, even in this abundant city where you can find everything. Right now, the greenmarkets are full of quart baskets of grapes, which release a languid musk as they sit in the sun and draw drunken yellow jackets into their orbit. It’s common to find Concords and Niagaras, both native New York varieties that are more user friendly than Scuppernongs. I adore Concords for their rich, winey hue. More than that, they are doubly nostalgic: they have a foxy aroma that evokes the Scuppernongs of my childhood and also a punchy sweetness reminiscent of PB&Js made with the commonest grape jam.
I never did figure out how to make wine in a home kitchen and probably never will. I do, however, love to mix up a good shrub, and I find Concord grapes perfect for that this time of year. A shrub is a nonalcoholic cordial made from macerated fruit, vinegar, sugar, and optional aromatics. A brief muddling at room temperature, plus the vinegar, gives the syrup a sharpness that is tamed by mixing with seltzer water or in a grown-up cocktail. The recipe below is simple, and I like to add the new gingerroot that is peppering the markets right now (New Yorkers: Lani’s Farm and Halal Pastures both carry tender baby ginger). We’ve had a string of gorgeous, crisp days this fall that ripen into hot afternoons and beg a cool drink.
Concord Grape & Ginger Shrub
Ingredients:
• 1 lb. Concord grapes
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (preferably an organic, unfiltered variety such as Bragg)
• A 1-inch knob of ginger, smashed flat with the side of a knife
Instructions:
Rinse grapes and pick them from their stems. Put grapes in a small, lidded pot and heat over medium high, cooking until they burst and release their juice (not long! 5 minutes or so). Remove from the heat and mash the fruit around, then stir in sugar, vinegar, and smashed ginger. Put the lid on and let sit, undisturbed, overnight up to 24 hours. The next day, strain the mixture into a bottle or jar, pressing out all the juice through a sieve. If you find the grape mixture has set you can heat it gently to loosen it up again. Refrigerate the shrub and use it mixed with a little seltzer, or in the cocktail of your choice. It will keep for several months.
