The Field Guide
The United States
America's own grapes, grown where vinifera struggled. Long before Napa, native vines like Norton and Concord built a wine country of their own — and the regions that still champion them are the country's real underdogs.
Native ground · America's underdog regions
The United States
The history
When phylloxera destroyed Europe's vineyards, American rootstock saved them. The native vines that did it — Norton, Concord, Catawba, Muscadine — built a homegrown wine culture that Prohibition nearly erased.
The land
Continental extremes vinifera can't always take: brutal Midwest winters, humid Southern summers, high dry plains. Native and hybrid grapes shrug them off.
Wine styles
Norton's dark, wild-berried reds from Missouri and Virginia; foxy Concord and Catawba around the Great Lakes; sweet Muscadine in the South; crisp emerging whites on the Texas plains.
The underdogs to drink
Start with the grapes worth the detour. More guides land as we publish them.
Whatever you drink now, there’s an underdog you’d like more.
One overlooked wine at a time: what it tastes like, the famous one it can replace, and the catch. It’s the list our wine club will be built from.
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