New York, Virginia and Texas. America's early wine states and the grafting story.

Old regions, local wines

European settlers in Virginia and New York and Spanish missionaries in Texas planted vines as early as the 17th century, though commercial production only began in the 19th century. Host Christy Canterbury MW, who was born in Texas and lives in New York, points out that these wines rarely leave their home states, but locals are now proudly drinking them.

New York and the Finger Lakes

New York is the third-largest wine-producing state by volume, yet more than 80% of its vineyards grow American grapes, mainly Concord for juice. Its cool, frost-prone climate pushes quality vineyards close to water: the coast, rivers and the long, thin Finger Lakes, carved by glaciers. Their thermal mass softens winter frosts. Seneca Lake, the deepest, almost never freezes.

In the 1950s, Dr. Konstantin Frank proved that European vines could survive here, and Riesling became king. Styles have shifted from semi-dry to dry. Marc Almert, Best Sommelier of the World 2019, stages a Riesling battle between Hermann Wiemer from the Finger Lakes and Van Volxem from Germany's Saar, served with chicken piccata. A Vidal icewine from Wagner Vineyards on Seneca Lake shows another local strength.

Vinifera, labrusca, crosses and hybrids

European wine grapes belong to Vitis vinifera. American species such as Vitis labrusca, which includes Concord, have a musky aroma known as foxy. Concord is mostly used for juice, jam and jelly, though a few mostly sweet wines are made from it around Lake Erie. A cross combines two varieties of the same species: Cabernet Sauvignon is a natural cross of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. A hybrid combines two different species. Vidal, bred in France in the 1930s from Ugni Blanc and a hybrid called Rayon d'Or, is thick-skinned, cold-hardy and high in acidity, ideal for icewine.

Virginia and Texas

Virginia lies between the Atlantic coast and the Appalachians, with most vineyards east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is home to Norton, a red American variety first cultivated in Richmond in the 1820s, which won an award at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. In the 1980s, pioneer Dennis Horton planted Viognier, betting that its thick skins and loose clusters would cope with the humid climate. Viognier is best known from Condrieu in the Northern Rhône, where it was almost extinct in the 1960s, and it needs a long, warm season to ripen fully. In 2011 it became Virginia's official signature grape. Petit Manseng, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot also impress.

Texas is slightly larger than France, with more than 4,000 acres of vines in eight AVAs. Its warm continental climate suits southern European grapes such as Tempranillo, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah and Sangiovese, and whites like Viognier, Vermentino, Roussanne and Picpoul. The Texas High Plains is a key high-altitude area. Texas also gave the world Thomas Volney Munson, whose work on native American vines helped European growers defeat phylloxera by grafting their vines onto American rootstock.

The flower experiment, grafting and blind tastings

To explain breeding, Marc and Christy cross two lilies with a brush, then a lily with a completely different flower to mimic a hybrid. Then they peel the wax off a grafted vine to reveal the V-shaped joint between the European scion and American rootstock, and explain the difference between bench grafting and field grafting.

Each host also tastes a wine blind, one red and one white, from the states in the episode. See how they read color, tannin, acidity and alcohol to work out the grape. The final pairing is a pumpkin risotto baked in a portobello mushroom.