Muscadine wine is made from Vitis rotundifolia, the thick-skinned grape native to the southeastern United States and, per the University of Florida, “the first native grape species to be cultivated in North America.” It is the grape behind Scuppernong, the Mother Vine on Roanoke Island, North Carolina’s official state fruit and the wineries of Rose Hill, North Carolina and Clermont, Florida. Here is what the grape is and where it grows, why it can be farmed where European vines cannot, the cultivars that go into the wine and who bred them, the sugar and alcohol numbers, the history with dates back to 1584, and how many standard drinks are in a glass.
Last verified September 14, 2026. Botany and growing facts are from the University of Florida IFAS (HS100), Mississippi State Extension (P2290), NC State Extension and the University of Georgia’s muscadine breeding program; the North Carolina statute from ncleg.gov; history from NCpedia, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the North Carolina History Project; producer facts from the producers’ own sites; standard drinks from NIAAA. Full list at the end.
| Muscadine | Fact |
|---|---|
| Species | Vitis rotundifolia, native from Delaware to central Florida, along the Gulf Coast to east Texas and up the Mississippi to Missouri (UF/IFAS) |
| Scuppernong | One bronze cultivar of muscadine, found wild on the Scuppernong River, NC, about 1810; not a separate fruit |
| Why it grows in the South | Natural resistance to Pierce’s disease (Xylella fastidiosa), which “prevents the extensive cultivation” of European grapes in Florida (UF/IFAS) |
| Sugar at harvest | 13 to 25 Brix (Mississippi State); the main wine cultivars, Carlos and Noble, run about 14 to 15 |
| Wine cultivars | Carlos (bronze, 1970) and Noble (black, 1973), both from the NC Agricultural Experiment Station |
| Harvest | Late July to late September in Florida; August into October across the region |
| Acreage | About 3,000 commercial acres in NC, SC, GA and FL in 2019 (Southeast Muscadine Production Guide) |
| State symbol | North Carolina’s official fruit: the Scuppernong grape from 2001, amended to “the Muscadine grape” in 2023 |
| Standard drinks | 1.0 per 5 oz glass at 12% ABV (the only producer-published muscadine ABV we found); 0.83 at 10% |
What muscadine is
Muscadine is a separate species from the European wine grape (Vitis vinifera) and from the other American species. UF/IFAS describes “over 100 improved cultivars” with berries “from 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 4 to 15 grams in weight,” skin color “from light bronze to pink to purple to black,” and the bronze ones “referred to as scuppernongs.” NC State’s Plant Toolbox notes the berries “appear singly or in small groups, not in large clusters,” which is why they are picked as individual berries rather than as bunches. Wild vines are “functionally dioecious,” meaning male and female flowers on separate plants; cultivated vines are either self-fertile or female, and female cultivars such as Fry, Scuppernong, Supreme and Higgins “must be planted near a perfect-flowered cultivar” (NC State), with the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium recommending at least an eighth to a quarter of a vineyard in self-fertile vines.
The reason the grape has been farmed in the Southeast for two centuries while European vines mostly failed there is disease. UF/IFAS: “A distinct benefit compared with European grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) is their natural resistance to Pierce’s disease, caused by a bacterial pathogen called Xylella fastidiosa. This pathogen prevents the extensive cultivation of V. vinifera (common grape) in Florida.” NC State adds resistance to the root insect phylloxera. The University of Georgia’s breeding program, NC State and Mississippi State have all released cultivars, and Ison’s Nursery, a private breeder, released Ison (1986) and Supreme (1988), the latter under a plant patent that has since expired.
The cultivars, and who bred them
| Cultivar | Color | Flower | Released | Use, per the extension services |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scuppernong | Bronze | Female | Found wild on the Scuppernong River, NC, about 1810 | “Holds on vine, good fruit quality, low yield” (Mississippi State) |
| Carlos | Bronze | Self-fertile | 1970, NC Agricultural Experiment Station (Nesbitt, Underwood, Carroll) | “The predominant bronze colored juice grape grown today” (UGA); “fruit best for producing wine” (Mississippi State) |
| Noble | Black | Self-fertile | 1973, NC Agricultural Experiment Station (Nesbitt, Carroll, Underwood) | “The leading red wine cultivar” (UGA); “most popular red muscadine grape for wine” (UF) |
| Magnolia | Bronze | Self-fertile | 1962, NC State and USDA | Pollinator and juice |
| Doreen | Bronze | Self-fertile | 1982, NC State and Mississippi State | Juice and wine |
| Fry | Bronze | Female | 1970, R. Lane, University of Georgia | Fresh market; “perhaps the most popular muscadine grape cultivar” (UF) |
| Supreme | Black | Female | 1988, Ison’s Nursery (plant patent 7267, expired) | Fresh market |
| Ison | Black | Self-fertile | 1986, Ison’s Nursery (plant patent 5822) | Fresh market; “resistant to berry rot” (Mississippi State) |
Two of those do most of the winemaking: Carlos for bronze (white) muscadine wine and Noble for red. Lakeridge in Florida grows Noble, Carlos and Welder; Duplin in North Carolina names its wines after Noble, Scuppernong and Magnolia. NC State’s home-garden list of self-fertile cultivars runs to fifteen names (Carlos, Doreen, Magnolia, Noble, Granny Val, Hall, Ison, Lane, Late Fry, Nesbitt, OhMy, Paulk, Razzmatazz, Tara, Triumph), with Fry, Higgins, Scuppernong and Jumbo as the female ones that need a pollinator.
Sugar, alcohol and why muscadine wine is usually sweet
Muscadine juice carries less sugar than ripe European wine grapes. Mississippi State gives the range as 13 to 25 Brix; UF/IFAS’s cultivar table puts Carlos at 14.3 to 15.3 Brix, Noble at 13.8 to 14.7 and Fry at 16.2 to 16.3; NC State’s 2021 harvest measured Carlos at 14.4 and Noble at 14.65; an eleven-cultivar north Florida trial found 12.6 to 21.45 Brix with pH of 3.0 to 3.5. At roughly 17 grams of sugar per liter for each 1 percent of alcohol (the extension rule of thumb, covered in How Much Alcohol Is in Every Kind of Wine), 14 to 15 Brix juice would ferment dry to only about 8 to 9 percent alcohol.
That is the number that explains the style. Federal rules (27 CFR 24.176 to 24.178) allow a winery to add sugar at the start of fermentation, so a 12 percent muscadine wine has either come from riper-than-typical grapes or, more likely, had sugar added; leaving some sugar unfermented is what makes most muscadine wine sweet or off-dry. The only producer-published alcohol figure we found is Lakeridge’s Southern Red, a Noble wine labeled 12 percent ABV. Duplin’s product pages do not print an ABV or residual sugar, and no producer we checked publishes grams per liter of sugar, so the “sweet,” “semi-sweet” and “dry” words on a muscadine label are the producer’s own scale rather than a defined one.
| Grape sugar | Potential alcohol if fermented dry (÷ 17 g/L per 1%) |
|---|---|
| 14 Brix (Carlos, Noble typical) | About 8.2% |
| 16 Brix (Fry) | About 9.4% |
| 21 Brix (top of the Florida trial) | About 12.4% |
| 22 Brix (ripe European white grapes, for comparison) | About 12.9% |
One published chemistry note for the curious: a 2021 study in Frontiers in Plant Science (Deng et al.) compared the aroma compounds of five cultivars and found geraniol and cinnamyl alcohol characteristic of Alachua and ethyl trans-2-butenoate and propyl acetate characteristic of Noble. The compound often named online for muscadine’s aroma, methyl anthranilate, does not appear in that study and we could not source it.
Growing it: harvest, yield and acreage
Harvest runs “as early as late July for some cultivars and extends to late September for others” in Florida (UF/IFAS); “early maturing muscadine cultivars generally ripen in middle to late August, while full-season varieties may ripen in middle to late September” (Mississippi State); across the region “harvest begins in August and continues through October and sometimes into early November” (Southeast Muscadine Production Guide). Because the berries ripen singly and not as a bunch, they are picked as they ripen. Vines are planted 12 to 20 feet apart in the row with 10 to 15 feet between rows (UF/IFAS); Mississippi State’s layout of 20 by 12 feet works out to 182 vines an acre. Yields are 3 to 4 tons an acre for the large fresh-market cultivars and 8 to 10 tons for processing cultivars like Carlos and Noble (Mississippi State). The Southeast production guide estimated about 3,000 commercial acres across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in 2019; UF/IFAS puts Florida at about 1,500 acres (USDA, 2017).
The history, with dates
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1524 | Giovanni da Verrazzano notes the grape on the Carolina coast (NCpedia). |
| 1584 | Raleigh’s Amadas and Barlowe expedition describes the coast as “so full of grapes, as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them”; NCpedia dates the discovery of the “Mother Vineyard” of scuppernong grapes on Roanoke Island to this expedition. |
| About 1810 | The Scuppernong cultivar is found on the Scuppernong River in northeastern North Carolina and takes its name. |
| 1829 to 1840 | Sidney Weller buys land in Halifax County, NC and by 1840 his Medoc Vineyard is “the state’s largest”; his highway marker credits him with introducing “American system of grape culture in 1830s.” He grew over two hundred grape types but concentrated on Scuppernong and other natives. |
| 1900 to 1904 | Paul Garrett, a former Medoc salesman, opens his own winery at Littleton, NC; his Virginia Dare scuppernong wines become “the best-selling wines in the nation” and win the grand prize at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (NCpedia). |
| 1909 | Horticulturist F.C. Reimer disputes the Mother Vine’s claim to be the oldest grapevine in the country, a claim still described as “reputed” today. |
| About 1930 | The Mother Vine supplies grapes to Garrett; “Mother Vineyard” becomes a scuppernong wine trademark, sold to a Petersburg, Virginia company in 1956. |
| 1962 to 1982 | The modern wine cultivars are released: Magnolia (1962), Carlos (1970), Noble (1973), Doreen (1982), from NC State, USDA and Mississippi State; Fry (1970) from the University of Georgia. |
| 1976 | Duplin Winery makes its first wine, from Noble grapes, in Rose Hill, NC. |
| 1986 to 1988 | Ison’s Nursery releases Ison and Supreme. |
| 1989 | Lakeridge Winery opens in Clermont, Florida (February). |
| 2001 | North Carolina names the Scuppernong grape its official state fruit (S.L. 2001-488, signed December 16, after Manteo Elementary students proposed it). |
| 2023 | S.L. 2023-63 (ratified June 27) amends the statute so the state fruit is “the Muscadine grape (Vitis genus),” which covers Scuppernong and every other cultivar. |
| 2025 | The Mother Vine property, owned by the Wilson family since 1957, is being transferred to Outer Banks Conservationists (Our State, April 2025). |
Two corrections to things that get repeated. Scuppernong is not a different fruit from muscadine; it is one bronze cultivar of the same species. And the Mother Vine is “reputed” and “reportedly” over 400 years old, wording every source keeps, because the claim was disputed in print in 1909 and has never been proven.
The producers
| Producer | Where | Since | What the producer states |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duplin Winery | Rose Hill, NC; also North Myrtle Beach, SC (2015) and Panama City Beach, FL | First wine 1976 | “Over 5,000 tons of grapes per season,” “1.8-million-gallon capacity,” “over 40,000 bottles of wine each day”; describes itself as “the oldest and largest winery in the south”; wines include Hatteras Red, Carolina Red, Scuppernong, Magnolia and Founder’s Noble; ABV not printed on its product pages |
| Lakeridge Winery and Vineyards | Clermont, FL | February 1989 | 127-acre estate with 80-plus acres of Noble, Carlos and Welder; Southern Red (Noble) labeled 12% ABV; also Southern White, Sunblush and Proprietor’s Reserve |
| Stonehaus Winery | Smithville, TN | April 1991 | Lists a Red Muscadine; “Tennessee’s only winery with statewide distribution” |
| Apple Barn Winery | Sevierville, TN | Not stated | “Southern favorites like Muscadine wine are also available” |
| Georgia Winery | Ringgold, GA | 1983, “Georgia’s first farm winery” | “Over 30 Sweet Southern Wines”; muscadine not named on the pages we checked |
Whether any of these is on the shelf near you depends on state distribution. Duplin has locations in three states; Stonehaus describes itself as Tennessee’s only winery with statewide distribution. Belle Meade Winery in Nashville lists “16+ wines,” and we could not confirm a muscadine among them, so it is not in the table.
How strong it is
NIAAA’s standard drink is 0.6 fl oz of pure alcohol, which is 5 oz of wine at 12 percent. The muscadine wines we checked are labeled as table wines (14 percent or under), and the one printed ABV we found is 12, so a 5 oz glass is about one standard drink or less.
| ABV | Per 5 oz glass | Per 750 mL bottle |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 0.83 | 4.2 |
| 11% | 0.92 | 4.7 |
| 12% (Lakeridge Southern Red label) | 1.00 | 5.1 |
Calories depend on the sugar left in the wine, which no producer we checked publishes. As arithmetic only: a 12 percent wine with 5 percent residual sugar works out to about 130 calories per 5 oz (14 g alcohol at 7 calories per gram plus 7 g sugar at 4), against USDA’s 125 for a dry table red. The USDA “dessert, sweet” entry (165 calories per 3.5 oz) is built on a roughly 15 percent wine and overstates a 10 to 12 percent muscadine.
Frequently asked questions
Is Scuppernong the same as muscadine? Scuppernong is one cultivar of muscadine, a bronze one found wild on North Carolina’s Scuppernong River around 1810. All Scuppernongs are muscadines; most muscadines are not Scuppernongs.
Why is muscadine wine sweet? The grapes carry about 14 to 15 Brix of sugar, enough for only 8 to 9 percent alcohol if fermented dry, so wineries add sugar under 27 CFR 24.176 and usually leave some unfermented.
How much alcohol is in muscadine wine? The one producer-published figure we found is 12 percent (Lakeridge Southern Red). At 12 percent a 5 oz glass is one standard drink; at 10 percent, 0.83.
Where does muscadine grow? Natively from Delaware to central Florida, west along the Gulf Coast to Texas and up the Mississippi to Missouri (UF/IFAS). Commercial acreage is concentrated in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, about 3,000 acres in 2019.
What is the Mother Vine? A Scuppernong vine on the north end of Roanoke Island, NC, covering more than half an acre and reputed to be the oldest grapevine in the country. The age claim was disputed in 1909 and remains unproven.
Is muscadine North Carolina’s state fruit? Yes. The 2001 law named the Scuppernong grape; a 2023 amendment changed it to the Muscadine grape.
Which grapes make the wine? Carlos (bronze, 1970) for white and Noble (black, 1973) for red, both bred at the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station. Lakeridge also grows Welder; Duplin also bottles Scuppernong and Magnolia.
Sources
- UF/IFAS HS100, The Muscadine Grape (Andersen, Sarkhosh, Huff, Breman, 2020), Mississippi State Extension P2290, Establishment and Production of Muscadine Grapes, NC State Extension, Muscadine Grapes in the Home Garden (rev. 2025), NC State Plant Toolbox, Vitis rotundifolia and NC State Viticulture, Muscadine grape production, checked September 14, 2026
- Muscadine Grape Production Guide for the Southeast (Hoffmann et al.), Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium, Commercial Muscadine Culture and the University of Georgia muscadine breeding program cultivar pages for Carlos, Noble, Magnolia, Doreen, Fry, Supreme and Ison, checked September 14, 2026
- Breman et al., Quality characteristics of selected muscadine grape cultivars grown in north Florida, Proc. Fla. State Hort. Soc. 2007 and Deng et al., Frontiers in Plant Science 2021 (aroma compounds), checked September 14, 2026
- NC G.S. 145-18, State fruit and S.L. 2023-63; NCpedia, State fruit, Mother Vineyard (Hairr, 2006) and Wine and wine making (Glynn, 2006); North Carolina History Project, Mother Vine; Our State, Roanoke Island’s vine through time (April 2025); WRAL, NC state fruit; NC DNCR, Sidney Weller (marker E-92), checked September 14, 2026
- Producers: Duplin Winery, Our Story, History and Duplin at 50; Lakeridge Winery and Southern Red (12% ABV); Stonehaus Winery; Apple Barn Winery; Georgia Winery; Belle Meade Winery, checked September 14, 2026
- 27 CFR 24.176, Crushing and fermentation (sugar addition) and NIAAA, What is a standard drink, checked September 14, 2026
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