Grape - Table and Wine Grapes

Table and Wine Grapes

Commercially cultivated grapes can usually be classified as either table or wine grapes, based on their intended method of consumption: eaten raw (table grapes) or used to make wine (wine grapes). While almost all of them belong to the same species, Vitis vinifera, table and wine grapes have significant differences, brought about through selective breeding. Table grape cultivars tend to have large, seedless fruit (see below) with relatively thin skin. Wine grapes are smaller, usually seeded, and have relatively thick skins (a desirable characteristic in winemaking, since much of the aroma in wine comes from the skin). Wine grapes also tend to be very sweet: they are harvested at the time when their juice is approximately 24% sugar by weight. By comparison, commercially produced "100% grape juice", made from table grapes is usually around 15% sugar by weight.

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Famous quotes containing the words table, wine and/or grapes:

    For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
    Bible: New Testament, Luke 22:27.

    Our national experience in Americanizing millions of Europeans whose chief wish was to become Americans has been a heady wine which has made us believe, as perhaps no nation before us has ever believed, that, given the slimmest chance, all peoples will pattern themselves upon our model.
    Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

    The silent vertebrate in brown
    Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
    Rachel née Rabinovitch
    Tears at the grapes with murderous paws.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)