It is my most thrilling table grape discovery in decades!!!
“Table grapes?” you might be asking. “I thought you liked Riesling, and Pinot Noir, and Xinomavro…the wine grapes, all those grapes destined for wine!”
Heck yes. I love them things, and the juice that happens when they’re squozed.
But I also love grapes that are grown to simply sit on your table, and be consumed by you, sphere by tingly sphere. Especially at this time of year.
Problem is…there are not a lot of “table” grapes out there with exquisite flavor. The eastern grape Concord comes to mind right now, and it is magnificent in the autumn…tasting like the intensely-fruity grape jam and jelly that it often becomes! But, as with many grapes headed for the table, there’s an eating problem. The seeds of Concord grapes are imbedded in a sticky goo, your mouth has to work hard to remove seed from goo, all of which is complicated by a thick and hard skin that seems like one more speed bump impeding your ride.
You could simply give in and buy seedless grapes at the supermarket, of course…but their chief characteristics are round, crunchy (if fresh), cold (if refrigerated), wet, a little sweet, a little sour. Flavor? Flavor? Forget about it!!! If only they had flavor!
So what is a grape-eater to do if a grape-eater wants an easy-to-eat seedless grape that tastes like something?
Enter the Thomcord…a grape that will change my life. You most definitely need to know about it!
I’m embarrassed to say that I just found out about it this weekend…but not embarrassed to say I fell in love, immediately.
A friend of mine was visiting from California and, after dinner, we got around to checking out the refrigerator in her parents’ NY apartment. “Oh, have you tried these?” she asked. “They’re Thomcord grapes. I bought them at the farmers’ market in San Francisco and brought them on the plane.”
Long, conical bunches. Medium-dark purple grapes, smallish. A bite. A moan. The “foxy” flavor of Concord grapes, though somewhat tamed, deliciously. A thin skin, adding texture, but easy to chew through. An amazing feel inside, nothing like the “goo” of the Concord; instead, what we have here is a skin-wrapped orb of silk, velvet, plushness. And seedless.
I ate about a hundred, then hit the books…discovering, as I expected, that the Thomcord grape is a cross of:
1) the California warhorse grape, the Thompson Seedless, and
2) the historic Concord grape, from New York and Ohio
So…let’s talk species, for a moment. There are numerous grape species in the world, but the two best known are the Vitis Vinifera and the Vitis Labrusca.
The Thompson Seedless is a Vitis Vinifera by species. It has some very hoity-toity relatives within its species: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Merlot, Zinfandel, all Vitis Vinifera…along with just about every grape you’ve ever heard of that makes a prestigious wine! It is native to Europe/Asia, probably the Caucasus. Vitis Vinifera vines are planted all over the world, obviously…the backbone of the modern wine industry. “How come I’ve never heard of a varietal Thompson Seedless wine?” you’re saying. Well…they used to be REALLY popular, before we got wine religion in this here country and switched to Chardonnay, etc. I remember my friend Julia Child picking out a jug of label-designated Thomson Seedless wine as her favorite wine with omelets, in about 1990! I suspect it was the neutrality she liked: either as table grapes, or wine grapes, Thomson Seedless does not lead to flavor complexity.
The other famous species is the Vitis Labrusca, which is native to upstate New York and the Ohio River Valley…the New World species. Wine snobs love to hate wine made from Vitis Labrusca grapes, like Concord. Why? It is a hardier plant, and produces grapes that make strongly-flavored wine…but not flavored in the right way for the snobs. The usual description of a Concord grape is “foxy”…probably not that it smells like a fox, but that it has a strong enough aroma to attract foxes. If you’ve ever drunk Welch’s grape juice, or indulged in the grape jelly jar, you know exactly what that taste is. Myself, I don’t even mind this taste in wine…there’s an amazing Austrian rosé made from Vitis Labrusca grapes!…but I certainly adore it in table grapes!
The rest is history (the rest of this story, that is…)
In 1983, a pair of government researchers in California created a hybrid of the Thompson Seedless and the Concord. They had their own scientific reasons—none of them nefarious, none of them GMO-like!—but stumbled upon an absolutely delicious table grape.
Three seedlings were planted in 1984 in California’s Central Valley. Good results ensued. Then, more testing took place two years later, in the San Joaquin Valley (the new grape was now under the name A29-67). After that, amazingly…tests went on for 17 more years before the government decided the Thomcord was ready for the world!
It was finally green lighted for sale to farmers, and at markets, on September 11, 2003, in California. It quickly became a cult success—my San Francisco friend was kinda amazed that I didn’t know about it. But its success has been mostly in California—which you’d have to visit EXACTLY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR to run into Thomcord. I suspect its season will be over within the week.
Drat! What are the rest of us supposed to do?
We’re supposed to start planning for 2014, obviously!
There are experimental plots in other places…maybe the Thomcord will come to us soon! More pro-active: talk with any greengrocer you know, and tell him you’d like him or her to look into Thomcord shipments for August 2014.
And then there’s my pro-active: I’m looking into ways to incorporate this wonder into a Summertime Fruit-of-the-Week Club that I’m planning for Summer, 2014.
If all else fails…go see a Giants’ game at AT&T Park in mid-August 2014! Skip the crackerjacks…you know what snack to bring!
Ironically, The Sacramento Bee in 2011 had this to say about the future of the Thomcord:
“Although it has been called a ‘sentimental favorite’ at farmers’ markets, it is not expected to become a major commercial variety because its flavor is not as neutral as more popular grapes, such as Thompson Seedless, Crimson Seedless, or Flame Seedless. However, Ramming predicted that it would become a specialty item, much like the Muscat varieties, due to its distinctive, Concord-like flavor.”
Let’s all rally, grape-lovers! Thomcord forever!
Photos: Cheryl Binstock/Flickr Creative Commons, Dreamstime and Bigstock
