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Grape
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A grape is a fruiting berry of the deciduous woody vines of the botanical genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten
raw or they can be used for making wine, jam, juice, jelly, grape seed extract, raisins, vinegar, and grape seed
oil. Grapes are a non-climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
History
The cultivation of the domesticated grape began 6,0008,000 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 4000 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 hieroglyphics record
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.
Description
Grapes are a type of fruit that grow in clusters of 15 to 300, and can be crimson, black, dark blue, yellow, green,
orange and pink. "White" grapes are actually green in color, and are evolutionarily derived from the purple
grape. Mutations in two regulatory genes of white grapes turn off production of anthocyanins, which are
responsible for the color of purple grapes.[6] Anthocyanins and other pigment chemicals of the larger family of
polyphenols in purple grapes are responsible for the varying shades of purple in red wines.[7][8] Grapes are
typically an ellipsoid shape resembling a prolate spheroid.
Grapevines
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 the Concord cultivar),
sometimes used for wine, are native to the Eastern United States and Canada.
Vitis riparia, a wild vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking and for jam. It is native to
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