Concord

Concord is the quintessential American grape — a hardy, blue-black Vitis labrusca variety bred in Massachusetts in the 1840s and now the flavour of an entire nation's childhood. It is the taste of purple grape juice, grape jelly and grape candy, an unmistakable "foxy," musky-sweet character that pours straight out of the fruit. Most Concord is pressed for juice, jelly and jam rather than fermented, but as wine it survives above all as sweet, low-alcohol kosher and "New York State" bottlings — Manischewitz being the famous name. Deeply coloured, boldly grapey and usually sweet, Concord wine is a soft, nostalgic, unapologetically sweet drink rather than a dry table wine.