The Mother Vine in North Carolina – 400 years young!
January 18, 2011If you saw my post last week on the 10 Facts About North Carolina Wine, you would have seen the #1 fact being the 400+ year old Scuppernong vine on Roanoke Island. Well I did a bit of digging, and I thought you might be interested to see what the vine actually looks like.
The 400 year old vine actually had a lucky escape last year, when a utility contractor actually thought it was a weed and sprayed it with weedkiller! Jack Wilson, who has owned half the vine for 52 years, noticed a bit of browning in late May 2010. He found more browning the next day. It turned out that a contractor for Dominion Power had driven through, spraying herbicides to keep vines from engulfing power poles. A tendril of the Mother Vine had touched a pole and so the contractor thoroughly sprayed it. You can breath a sigh of relief, as word is that the vine has already made a full recovery.
North Carolina take the Scuppernong grape vine very seriously, their official state toast even salutes a land "where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night."
Click here for more on this story from the Charlotte Observer
