Abstract
While there are good quality wines being made from muscadine and white bunch grapes in Florida, there is no identified well-adapted Florida grape for quality red wine that is color-stable. 'Cynthiana' (also known as 'Norton') is considered one of the best American grape varieties for fine wine making and is suspected to have good tolerance to PD (Pierce's disease) and low susceptibility to foliar and fruit disease. It is being successfully grown for commercial wine production in southern Louisiana, as well as Missouri, Arkansas, and Virginia. 'Cynthiana' grape produces color stable wines. It has strong potential in Florida but needs to be evaluated before it can be recommended. Most of the grape varieties in existence today are centuries old and are considered to have arisen by various means: domestication of wild vines, spontaneous crosses between wild vines and cultivated varieties, and crosses between two varieties. Knowledge of a variety's parentage can have a great impact in its culture. DNA analysis with microsatellite (simple sequencing repeat-SSR) markers can determine the pedigree of varieties if the DNA profile of the parents has been analyzed and documented. It is assumed that 'Cynthiana'/Norton originated from Vitis aestivalis, Michaux. We have investigated the parentage of 'Cynthiana' grape via data mining in the existing North American grape germplasm collections, ampelographic analyses and specifically expressed in the variety microsatellite markers.
