Catawba (grape)

Catawba is a red American grape variety used for wine as well as juice, jams and jellies. Grown predominantly on the East Coast of the United States, this purplish-red grape is a likely a hybrid of the native American Vitis labrusca and the Vitis vinifera cultivar Sémillon. Its exact origins are unclear but it seems to have originated somewhere on the East Coast between the Carolinas and Maryland.

Catawba played an important role in the early history of American wine. During the early to mid-19th century, it was the most widely planted grape variety in the country and was the grape behind Nicholas Longworth's acclaimed Ohio sparkling wines that were distributed as far away as California and Europe.

Catawba is a late-ripening variety, ripening often weeks after many other labrusca varieties and, like many vinifera varieties, it can be susceptible to fungal grape diseases such as powdery mildew.

Origins

The exact origins and parentage of the Catawba grape are unclear. While most sources agree that Major John Adlum was growing the variety at his nursery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C, by at least 1823, where he got the cuttings of the vine is unknown; two widowed Maryland women are given attribution by different writers. Wine writer Bern Ramey and University of California, Davis viticulture professor Lloyd A. Lider credit Mrs. J. Johnston of Fredericktown, Maryland, who wrote to Adlum and said while her late husband always called the grapes "Catawba", she did not know where he got the original vines from.