I did eat the grapes, and to my surprise, I realized that the fruits had seeds. I was so used to buying grapes from grocery stores, which are grown to not have seeds, that I wasn’t expecting seeds. The grapes were sweet, but not as sweet as grocery store grapes. Apparently, this type of grape is used for cooking and making sauces. It makes sense that it would not be as sweet, because if it were, the whole dish would have to be sweet.
Another interesting thought that crossed my mind when I saw this 400-year-old plant is that it has probably lived through five human generations. This means that your great-great-great-great-grandfather was alive as the grapevine was being planted!
This plant lives in vineyards, but it also lives inside my university campus as well! I get to see it every day. It is surrounded by four walls. That might be the reason why it survived the phylloxera epidemic, an epidemic of aphid-like insects, which killed over 70% of France’s grapevines. In fact, this epidemic still affects most European grapevines today. In order to grow healthy grapes in Europe, a piece of American grapevine, which is naturally resistant to these insects, has to be grafted onto the European grapevine when it is planted. To graft the American vine to the European one, a knotch is cut into the bark and a piece of American vine is placed inside the notch. This makes the plant resistant to these deadly pests so that grapes can still grow successfully in Europe!
