Have you heard the ‘Lost Colony’ story about the grapes?

Every discussion about North Carolina’s “Lost Colony” needs to include a mention of the “Mother Vine” of all scuppernong grapes. It’s ultra-thick, gnarled and about 450 years old. It grows near the north shore of Roanoke Island. 

The guys who apparently saw it first in 1584 were English explorers Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, who were “scouting” possible colonization locations for their employer – Sir Walter Raleigh.

 

They observed that North Carolina was “so full of grapes…covering every shrub and climbing the tops of high cedars…that in all the world the like abundance is not to be found.” 

That wasn’t hype. Amadas and Barlowe were worldly fellows, “having already toured the most productive grape-growing regions of Europe,” stated Dr. Troy L. Kickler, founding director of the North Carolina History Project, sponsored by the John Locke Foundation of Raleigh.

The word “scuppernong” comes from the Algonquian word “askuponong,” meaning “place of the ‘askupo,’ a sweet bay tree.” 

The second verse of Leonora Monteiro Martin’s poem in 1904, which later became North Carolina’s “official toast,” attests to that sweetness: 

Here’s to the land of the cotton bloom white,

Where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night,

Where the soft southern moss and jessamine mate,

’Neath the murmuring pines of the Old North State!

 

Dr. Kickler said the Native Americans on Roanoke Island in the 16th century, the Croatoans, “reportedly made wine” from the scuppernong grapes. “These grapes undoubtedly provided sustenance for the early settlers of the Lost Colony,” he said. Scuppernongs produce a sweet, white wine. 

Caroline Rogers, a travel and culture writer at Southern Living magazine, said: “Scuppernongs are big, juicy grapes that are greenish, burnished bronze, or green-gold in color. A scuppernong is a specific selection of muscadine.”

 

Author and poet Sallie Southall Cotten (1846-1929) linked the iconic scuppernong grapes with the equally iconic Virginia Dare, the first child born (1587) in the New World of English heritage. Her parents were members of the group that came from England and became known as the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island. Virginia’s grandfather was John White, the colonial governor.

 

According to local legend, Virginia and other settlers were absorbed into the native village of the Croatoans and protected by its great leader, Manteo, who was friendly toward the colonists. 

Meanwhile, Paul Garrett (1863-1940), a native of Edgecombe County, N.C., learned the wine business from an uncle and then went out on his own to establish a new winery in 1900. He started making wine in Halifax County along Chockoyotte Creek near Weldon. 

Cotten published a small book in 1901, “The White Doe: The Fate of Virginia Dare, an Indian Legend.” It was just what Garrett needed to promote his new Virginia Dare scuppernong wines. 

Garrett believed the romantic story could be leveraged to encourage women to take more interest in his wines. Garrett & Company started giving away copies of Cotten’s book with every purchase of a bottle of Virginia Dare wine. 

Some sources question whether Garrett may have even commissioned Cotten to produce the literary work. He was quite the marketer and regarded by many as “the dean of American winemakers.” 

North Carolina historian William Stevens Powell (1919-2015) said Garrett & Company soon “had wineries and vineyards at many places in the state including Aberdeen, Plymouth and Roanoke Island.” 

“For a number of years,” Powell said, “Garrett marketed both red and white wines under the trade name of ‘Virginia Dare.’”

 

A few years ago, business writer Frank Maley of Charlotte, N.C., commented that Paul Garrett could have made the case that wine is healthy. 

“A little wine, the Bible says, is good for the belly,” Maley wrote. “Muscadine wine, medical research says, is even better, rich in compounds that help prevent cancer and heart disease – which nobody knew back then.”