The Flame Seedless

The Flame Seedless is a vigorous, heavy-bearing table grape cultivar that keeps well in storage. It is a hybrid of Thompson, Cardinal, and several other Vitis vinifera cultivars. It produces large clusters of medium-large red grapes with a sweet flavor.
Flame Seedless requires a long growing season. As such, the plants fare poorly in cool, damp zones. However, its good qualities, especially seedlessness, sweetness, and long shelf life, make it one of the most heavily farmed table grapes.^{[citation needed]}
The Flame Seedless was first introduced in the 1970s. It is the second-most popular grape in the United States.^{[citation needed]} For a Flame Seedless to be called good-quality, it must be plump, well-colored, and firmly attached to the stem. The grapes are usually picked ripe, as they do not ripen after harvest

Crimson Seedless grapes

Crimson Seedless grapes have elongated, pinkish-red berries with a crisp, firm skin and a juicy pulp.

Flavour

Medium-sized Crimson seedless grapes have a crisp, refreshing, sweetly-tart, almost spicy flavour.

Nutrition

Grapes have low GI certification from the Glycaemic Index Foundation meaning they're a great source of long-lasting energy and a perfect pick-me-up when you're peckish.  The glucose and fructose in grapes are 'good' sugars which provide a great natural source of energy.

Serving suggestions

Try these ways with Crimson seedless:
Snack: Crimson seedless delicious eaten raw on their own as a snack or added to fruit salads or cheese platters.
Jelly: Set whole grapes in jelly and serve with ice-cream.
Sauce: Sauté until soft and serve with meat and mixed with vegetables.

Seasonality

Available from January to May.

How to select

Crimson seedless grapes should be full bodied with a bright, practically intact bloom and fresh green bunch stems

Seedless grapes

Although grape seeds contain many nutrients, some consumers choose seedless grapes; seedless cultivars now make up the overwhelming majority of table grape plantings. Because grapevines are vegetatively propagated by cuttings, the lack of seeds does not present a problem for reproduction. It is an issue for breeders, who must either use a seeded variety as the female parent or rescue embryos early in development using tissue culture techniques.
There are several sources of the seedlessness trait, and essentially all commercial cultivators get it from one of three sources: Thompson Seedless, Russian Seedless, and Black Monukka, all being cultivars of Vitis vinifera. There are currently more than a dozen varieties of seedless grapes. Several, such as Einset Seedless, Benjamin Gunnels's Prime seedless grapes, Reliance and Venus, have been specifically cultivated for hardiness and quality in the relatively cold climates of northeastern United States and southern Ontario.^[12]
An offset to the improved eating quality of seedlessness is the loss of potential health benefits provided by the enriched phytochemical content of grape seeds (see Health claims, below).

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.

Juice

Grape juice is obtained from crushing and blending grapes into a liquid. The juice is often sold in stores or fermented and made intowine, brandy, or vinegar. In the wine industry, grape juice that contains 7–23 percent of pulp, skins, stems and seeds is often referred to as "must". In North America, the most common grape juice is purple and made from Concord grapes while white grape juice is commonly made from Niagara grapes, both of which are varieties of native American grapes, a different species from European wine grapes. In California, Sultana (known there as Thompson Seedless) grapes are sometimes diverted from the raisin or table market to produce white juice.^[9]

Most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera, the European grapevine native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Minor amounts of fruit and wine come from American and Asian species such as:

• Vitis labrusca, the North American table and grape juice grapevines (including theconcord cultivar), sometimes used for wine, are native to the Eastern United States andCanada.
• Vitis riparia, a wild vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking and for jam. It is native to the entire Eastern U.S. and north to Quebec.
• Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jams and wine, are native to theSoutheastern United States from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico.
• Vitis amurensis is the most important Asian species.

Grapes, purple or green

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy	288 kJ (69 kcal)
Carbohydrates	18.1 g
- Sugars	15.48 g
- Dietary fiber	0.9 g
Fat	0.0 g
Protein	0.72 g
Thiamine (vit. B1)	0.069 mg (6%)
Riboflavin (vit. B2)	0.07 mg (6%)
Niacin (vit. B3)	0.188 mg (1%)
Pantothenic acid (B5)	0.05 mg (1%)
Vitamin B6	0.086 mg (7%)
Folate (vit. B9)	2 μg (1%)
Vitamin B12	0 μg (0%)
Vitamin C	10.8 mg (13%)
Vitamin K	22 μg (21%)
Calcium	10 mg (1%)
Iron	0.36 mg (3%)
Magnesium	7 mg (2%)
Manganese	0.071 mg (3%)
Phosphorus	20 mg (3%)
Potassium	191 mg (4%)
Sodium	3.02 mg (0%)
Zinc	0.07 mg (1%)
Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient Database

A grape is a fruiting berry of the deciduous woody vines of the botanical genus described as Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, wine, grape seed extract,raisins, vinegar, and grape seed oil. Grapes are a non-climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.

The cultivation of the domesticated grape began 6,000–8,000 years ago in the Near East.^[1] The earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia.^[2][3]

Yeast, one of the earliest domesticated microorganisms, occurs naturally on the skins of grapes, leading to the innovation of alcoholic drinks such as wine. The earliest known production occurred around 8,000 years ago on the territory of Georgia.^[4] During an extensive gene-mapping project, archaeologists analyzed the heritage of more than 110 modern grape cultivars, and narrowed their origin to a region in Georgia, where wine residues were also discovered on the inner surfaces of 8,000-year-old ceramic storage jars.^[5] The oldest winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4,000 BC. By the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has been proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz, a city in Persia where the grape was used to make Shirazi wine. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphicsrecord the cultivation of purple grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks,Phoenicians and Romans growing purple grapes for both eating and wine production. The growing of grapes would later spread to other regions in Europe, as well as North Africa, and eventually in North America.

In North America, native grapes belonging to various species of the Vitis genus proliferate in the wild across the continent, and were a part of the diet of many Native Americans, but were considered by European colonists to be unsuitable for wine. Vitis vinifera cultivars were imported for that purpose.

World grape production and some of the important producers

Country	Production in 2009 (Tonnes)	‡	Production in 2010 (Tonnes)	‡	Percentage of world production in 2010
China	8,039,091		8,651,831		12.67%
Italy	8,242,500		7,787,800		11.40%
United States	6,629,160		6,220,360		9.11%
Spain	5,573,400		6,107,200		8.94%
France	6,104,340		5,848,960		8.56%
Turkey	4,264,720		4,255,000		6.23%
Chile	2,500,000	(F)	2,755,700	(I)	4.03%
Argentina	2,181,570		2,616,610		3.83%
India	1,878,000		2,263,100	(I)	3.31%
Iran	2,255,670		2,255,670		3.30%
World	67,901,744	(A)	68,311,466	(A)	100%

Preserving Grapes: Home Canned Juice

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Grapes are are a wonderful fruit to enjoy all year long. If you happen to have a good crop of grapes this year, you can preserve those grapes as juice for a beverage or to use for making fresh jelly later. Some people like to home can seedless whole grapes or halved deseeded grapes for use in salads. If you have freezer room, freezing grapes is an easy preservation method that include both sweetened and unsweetened forms. Or you can make dried grapes (raisins) to use as great snacks and to use for recipe ingredients. Be sure to harvest grapes when they are at their peak in ripeness, since they will not continue ripening once pulled from the vine. If you need to peel grapes, you can freeze them and then rinse in warm water until the skin splits and slides off. Whether eaten fresh or in a preserved form, grapes are a favorite fruit to add variety to our diet.

Home canned grape juice requires about 3 1/2 pounds of grapes per quart, so to make a canner load of 7 quarts you’ll need about 24 1/2 pounds. According to the “USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning” directions for processing grape juice at altitudes over 1,000 feet, first you wash and stem grapes and place them in a saucepan. Then, cover grapes with boiling water and heat to simmer grapes slowly till skin is soft. Next, strain through a jelly bag or double layer of cheesecloth. Caution: Hold up on processing until strained juice is refrigerated for 24-48 hours, because this step of removing sediment will prevent large unappealing crystals, tartaric acid, from forming in the canned juice. After 24-48 hours of chilling, take the chilled juice and carefully, without mixing, pour off the clear liquid for juice and discard the sediment that forms in the bottom of the container. Some people prefer to strain again through a paper coffee filter for a clearer juice. Now to finish processing the juice for canning, add the strained juice to a saucepan and sweeten to taste if desired. (Grape jelly can be canned unsweetened if you plan to use the juice for making jelly.) Heat and stir juice, dissolving any added sugar, until juice begins to boil. Immediately add hot juice to clean, hot jars, leaving a 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe the jar rims with a dampened clean paper towel, add lids and rings tightening “finger tight.” Place canned juice in a boiling water canner making sure the water level is 1-2 inches over the tops of jars and add the canner lid. When canner water returns back to boiling after jars are added, process pints or quarts for 10 minutes and half gallon jars for 15 minutes. Remove the canner from the heat, and then remove the canner lid and wait five minutes to let jar ingredients settle a bit. Use a jar lifter to remove jars from the canner, and place jars on a towel to cool. Between 12 to 24 hours from end of boiling water procession, check the lids to see if they sealed. If a jar lid has not sealed, you can replace it with a new lid and reprocess juice within 24 hours from end of previous processing time. When processed jars have cooled, remove rings and then store canned juice in a cool, dark area. Home canned food quality is maintained for about 12 months.

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