By voyaging across the Atlantic and taking root far from home, a few lucky American vines survived extinction and thrived in new places. Like refugees everywhere, their ability to adapt to a foreign landscape and culture was critical. First viewed as exotic curiosities, these American castaway grapes ended becoming an important part of vineyard landscapes around the world.

Before European colonization in North America in the 16th century, numerous native species of Vitis —botanically classified as labrusca, aestivalis, riparia, etc.— wild American grapevines were used by Indigenous people for food and not wine. European immigrants brought with them cuttings of their own grapes in hopes of growing wine in the new world. These European varieties all belonged to a single grape species Vitis vinifera that, along with wheat for bread, has travelled with humans since the dawn of agriculture.

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These vinifera vines did not find hospitable conditions and soon died off from cold, disease and predatory insects. However, some were able to survive long enough for their flowers to send pollen into forests lined with American Vitis species. These chance encounters resulted in the birth of an entirely new class of European-American hybrid grape.