Winemaking in Florida

Florida is not an easy place to grow grapes. It's too wet and too hot for most of the standard cultivars, and the spectre of Pierce's disease is an ever present danger. Even the 'Blanc du Bois' vine next my house, bred for Florida, is constantly being devastated by some pest or malady. One way around all these issues, however, is growing muscadine grapes. Muscadines are natives to the American South and cousins of the old familiar grapes, belonging to the species Vitis rotundifolia, and are set apart from the rest of the grape genus by the fact that they have 40 chromosomes, rather than 38. They're also rather distinct in taste and texture, though quite a few people like them for it.

Anyway, my reason for mentioning them is that I just happened across this blog dedicated to them:

Muscadine Musings

I haven't decided whether it merits a place in the sidebar, but there's a fair bit there (including the entire Wikipedia article on muscadines...ugh.)