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Cutting from 'Mother Vine' planted in Rose Hill, NC

A cutting from an ancient scuppernong grape "mother vine" that has grown for centuries along the North Carolina coast will now have a chance to spread its heritage into Duplin County.

The Manteo vine was already established when English settlers first reached North Carolina in the late 1500s. Mention of it is made in journals kept by members of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition. At a ceremony last week, a sprig from the vine was rooted in the soil at the Mother Vine Vineyard near Rose Hill. David Fussell, the co-owner of Duplin Winery, said the planting was a historical moment for the state's wine industry, which has hopes of catching up to bigger rivals California and New York.

Randy Drew, a Wilmington filmmaker, show attendees at the planting ceremony a preview of his video, "The N.C. Grape Legends and Legacy," which depicts the history of the famed mother vine.

"The U.S. wine industry did not start in Napa Valley. It started here," said Drew. North Carolina was the nation's leading producer of wine before the Civil War and has always been known for its scuppernong-based vintages, he said. Early explorers found grape vines growing wild all over the eastern part of the state.

Recent studies have shown the variety to be among the healthiest types of grapes. The scuppernongs contain high levels of antioxidants and even the hulls and seeds can be used for nutritional purposes.

Members of the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Vine presided over the planting ceremony at the vineyard about four miles east of Rose Hill as members of the Fussell family set into place the first of 62 rooted cuttings from the two-foot-thick mother vine.

Fussell said the new plants are expected to be pollinated by nearby Carlos muscadine vines, another variety of the same grape species.

By Bonnie Edwards - Published in News on May 8, 2005 02:03 AM

Ancient vine that boosts modern-day health gets new lease on life at Duplin vineyard

An ancient admonition warns not to pour new wine into old wineskins. But there's no warning about providing new wine-related products for capsules.

Several generations of North Carolinians-turned-vintners intend to do just that - incorporate fruit from what is reportedly North America's oldest grapevine into their company's most popular secondary product: nutraceuticals, specifically, antioxidants found in grapes. In fact, age-wise, scuppernong vine cuttings from Roanoke Island that Duplin Winery's owners and others recently planted in one of their vineyards might be as old as Sir Walter Raleigh's futile efforts to found an English colony. Island lore has it that the Mother Vineyard's trunk was already two feet thick when discovered by an expedition associated with the "Lost Colony" in the 1580s.

In May, the Fussell family, who own the 600 acres near Rose Hill in which 80 farmers also own shares, planted about 60 rooted cuttings donated by former state Sen. Fountain Odom from the ancient "mother vine" (above, at left), which apparently has flourished for centuries on Roanoke Island. The wine-promoting Brotherhood of the Knights of the Vine, of which Odom is a member, also led the second annual "Blessing of the Vine" ceremony near a recent planting of 35 acres of cross-pollinating Carlos, the hardiest and most antioxidant-filled muscadine.

Why bother to use cuttings from a musty old vine?

Says David Fussell, winery co-owner, for one thing, there's the historical significance.

"My research from the historical documents in the Manteo Library shows it was probably planted by Indians," he says. "We have evidence that they had enough agricultural knowledge to produce hybrids. I can document the original white grape back to the 1700s.

"And the Mother Vine muscadine is an albino; it's a rarity," Fussell says.  "We wanted to plant a heritage stock in case anything ever happened to the original vine."

It's also delicate, Fussell notes. While most cuttings have a 95 percent survival rates, previous Mother Vine cuttings survive at a 10 percent rate.  

"We think it's so old, its DNA is worn out and it won't propagate," he says.

Today's Mother Vine, on private property not far from state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight's home, is much reduced from the half-acre it reportedly once covered but still produces grapes. The vine and others nearby supplied the Mother Vineyard Winery in Manteo until its 1954 closing.

How are the drip-irrigated former island vines thriving in the coastal plains' sandy loams?

"Pretty well; some better than others," said Duplin Winery's co-owner David Fussell Jr. in early August, when crews already were training the Mother Vineyard's vines left and right along a five-foot high wire.

Antioxidant content has yet to be determined for the still-young Mother Vine rootings, however.

"In nutraceuticals," says Fussell Jr., "each year the active resveratrol compound count varies from one grape variety to another. Research shows that more-stressed vines produce more antioxidants. That stress can be from fungals, heat or aridity, and the stresses vary from location to location."

Whatever the Mother Vine's antioxidant-producing potential, if nothing else, he says, "Our hope is that in four years, we'll get some good ol' muscadine for wine."