New in the collection: Mother Vineyard wine label

Label reading Mother Vineyard North Carolina Scuppernong Wine and show a batch of grapes.

“Mother Vineyard is a community on the north end of Roanoke Island in Dare County where an ancient and famous scuppernong grapevine grows. Known at times as the ‘Sir Walter Raleigh Vine’ and the ‘Mother Vine,’ it…  is reputed to be the oldest grapevine in the United States, as well as the original vine from which all subsequent scuppernong grapes descended.

“In 1909 horticulturalist F. C. Reimer refuted these claims, showing that the oldest vines in the state grew in Tyrrell County. As for the scuppernong vines of Roanoke Island, he found five old vines growing ‘in two straight rows.’ North Carolina grape authority Clarence Gohdes called this statement ‘sure evidence that they are survivors of a modern vineyard’ and placed their origins back to the 1850s.”

— From the Mother Vineyard entry by John Hairr (2006) in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina