Life Style / Wine Grapes / Cynthiana: Local lore suggests this oldline red wine producing grapevine was a 'chance find' wild growth in the State of Arkansas. Ampelographic characteristics are so similar that most experts considered it identical, or closely clonally related, to the Norton grapevine claimed to have originated from the State of Virginia -. DNA analysis carried out in the Geneva Research Station, New York, has shown the two cultivars to be identical members of the V.aestivalis vine group. There is controversy about which cultivar has best resistance to Pierce's Disease. Successful and prized in Arkansas and Missouri where it reportedly ripens in late September and keeps well. It has proven somewhat less adaptable in more southerly States, low productivity small berry clusters having been reported along the Gulf Coast. At the height of the mid-19th century phylloxera crisis in France this variety was the vine of choice for vineyard restoration. However its poor calcium tolerance defeated all efforts at replanting, due to the high lime content of most French soils, and it has never regained that popularity. Grafting is not required. Requires soils with good drainage if disease is to be avoided. Wine color is stable, a characteristic that helped promote its 1873 acclamation in Europe as 'best red wine of all nations'. Popularly known in the USA as the 'Cabernet of the Ozarks'.
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