Muscadine

Get to know it

Muscadine is a grape from the southeastern United States with a fruity, musky scent and sweet juice. Its thick skin wraps seed-filled pulp, and in a North Carolina grape hull pie that sturdy skin becomes part of the filling.

What it is

Muscadines have dark purple or bronze skins and berries about 1.3–2.5 cm (0.5–1 in) across. They grow singly or in small groups, rather than the large bunches of familiar table grapes.

The skin changes the eating experience. Purple Black Beauty has a crunchy skin and suits fresh eating; bronze Carlos has tougher skin and goes into juice, jelly and wine. Scuppernong is one particular bronze variety, though the name is often used for bronze muscadines in general.

Where it comes from

Muscadines belong to the southeastern US. Native Americans dried the fruit long before Europeans arrived. The vines still grow wild throughout Mississippi and are a familiar home crop across the South.

The first named variety began as a bronze grape found in Tyrrell County, North Carolina, before 1760. It was called Big White Grape before it became Scuppernong. Many early varieties were simply good vines selected from the wild.

How it's eaten where it grows

Across the American South, muscadines go into wine, pies and jellies. A North Carolina scuppernong grape hull pie puts the skins to work: the pulp is cooked separately and pressed through a strainer to remove the seeds, then reunited with the hulls.

The skins soften with more cooking. Sugar and lemon juice join the fruit, and a lid of pastry closes the pie. Both the pulp and the part that feels toughest when eaten fresh end up in the filling.

How it's grown

Muscadines grow on woody climbing vines that lose their leaves. They favour sun and well-drained soil. Growers train the vines along wires and cut back the side shoots every dormant season.

Some varieties can fruit alone. Others, including Fry and Scuppernong, have only female flowers and need a nearby muscadine whose flowers have both male and female parts. A single vine of the wrong kind can leave a garden without grapes.

When and where you'll find it

In Georgia, muscadines usually ripen from early August in the far south through early October farther north. In Mississippi, harvest usually runs from late August through October. Pickers remove ripe berries individually.

Pick-your-own vineyards offer a way to taste them where they grow. At Lockman Vineyard in Iron Station, North Carolina, the usual picking season runs from September’s Labor Day weekend through October. The vineyard also makes ciders and jellies.

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What it tastes like

As sweet as a banana, as mild as a peach≈

Not sweetlemonSweet

MildbananaapplelemonSour

SoftbananaappleCrisp

More about the taste

Muscadine skin is part of the tasting: Black Beauty is crunchy-skinned and good for fresh eating, while Carlos has tougher skin better suited to juice, jelly and wine.

Black Beauty has crunchy skin, while Carlos has tougher skin suited to juice, jelly and wine — skin texture is a useful tasting dimension. A processing variety isn't a failed fresh-eating one; it's bred for a different purpose.

Choose, ripen, store, eat

1ChooseFully colored
Look for
Fully colored
Yields slightly
Detaches easily
No wet stem scars
For pick-your-own muscadines, choose fully colored berries that yield slightly and detach easily. Taste a few with the grower's permission — a cluster doesn't ripen all at once.
2RipenDoesn’t ripen after picking
Doesn’t ripen after picking
Pick muscadines ripe — they won't continue ripening or become sweeter after picking.
3StoreFridge, after harvest
1. FridgeAfter harvest
Refrigerate muscadines after harvest and during transport. Sound fruit without wet stem scars stores better, and varieties differ in how well they keep.
4EatBerries, Skin
Eat
BerriesSkin
Fresh-market muscadines are chosen for sweetness and relatively thin skin; grapes grown for juice, wine and jelly are chosen for other traits. Keep whole-fruit eating, juice and fermented products distinct when following a recipe.

More tips

Worth knowing

Named muscadine varieties differ enough to be worth tasting side by side.
A muscadine's skin and pulp shape its flavor as much as its sweetness.

Detroit, Michigan

When it’s good here

Season not documented for Michigan.

2 growing areas, 1 country

Georgia +1
You

Grows hereIn season nowOther monthsYou

2 of 2 areas · October

2

The Hall variety is a Fry-by-Tara cross made by breeder Melvin Hall, selected in 2004, tested by Patrick Conner, and released in 2014 by the University of Georgia. It was bred with an eye toward skin tearing and usable fruit as well as flavor.
Georgia, United States

16 varieties

See all 16 varieties

10 names in 7 languages

Cook it

Recipes 2

2 muscadine festivals

NC Muscadine FestivalSepKenansville, North Carolina, United StatesSep

Pelahatchie Muscadine JubileeSepPelahatchie, Mississippi, United States · Organiser ↗Sep

Festivals this month →

Strange but true

If you like Muscadine

Tastes alike

Close relatives

Grape≈crunchier

Used the same way

Nutrition, sources

Nutrition

Grapes, muscadine, raw · per 100 g

Energy57kcal · 238 kJ

Carbohydrate: 14 g
Fiber: 3.9 g
Protein: 0.8 g
Fat: 0.5 g
Vitamin C: 6.5 mg
Potassium: 203 mg

Sources

Muscadine · Fruitopia · checked Sep 22, 2026

What we don't know yet

Lockman Muscadine Vineyard's season isn't tied to fixed dates.