A couple of months ago I got a surprise while looking at some fruit my parents had bought. They were grapes, but giant ones. And not just one freakishly large one mixed in with normal siblings, but the whole batch. So I was able to get an easy blog post topic completely unexpectedly, out of the blue.
Moon drop grapes are, as far as I can tell, only made by one company, which goes by the unimaginative, but apparently effective name of the Grapery. To give a brief background, the Grapery was started in Bakersfield, California in 1996. It was founded by Jack Pandol, a man whose family ran a vineyard, and who got his viticulture degree from the University of California--Davis. His co-owner is Jim Beagle, who has an agricultural degree, also from UC-Davis, and an MBA from Harvard. Evidently their main plan is to cultivate new varieties of grapes, and come up with new and sometimes elaborate names for them. For example, aside from moon drops, they sell grapes called cotton candy, gum drop, tear drop, flavor pop, sweet celebration, sweet surrender, autumn royal, sheegene 21, and sweet globe. Some of their cultivation secrets involve covering the grapes from excessive rain, so that they get more sun (which reportedly enables them to reach peak ripeness, and have the best flavor), and harvesting different fields of grapes at different times, instead of doing all of them at the same time. (I'm sure there are other strategies, too, but I guess they don't want to help out their competitors too much.) Their unusual shapes and flavors are natural, too, and not like the Grapples I discussed in my March 30, 2013 post about hybrid fruits and animals. Also, the Grapery does not use GMO's, and is into sustainable farming. But, they are not organic, if that's important to you.
Anyway, the moon drop grapes are big, as I mentioned. They average about 1.5 inches long (or about 4 cm.), and are a dark purplish/black color on the outside. They kind of look like mini-eggplants in shape and color. The interior flesh is green, with no seeds. The taste was good. But oddly disappointing, in that I don't know if I could tell them apart from regular sized purple grapes. (Or even green or red ones for that matter--I don't think my palate is that discerning when it comes to grapes.) I probably should have done a blind taste test, like I did with the sunrise raspberries versus regular raspberries (see June 24, 2017 post), but I didn't think of it at the time, and now it's too late. Yes, this whole post has been a tease, as the season for moon drops is August 20th--November 15th. So if you're interested in trying this variety, which looks like grapes on steroids, you'll have to wait about 8-9 months from now. Finally, just about every other kind of the Grapery's wares is also out of season now, too.
Despite my dismay that they didn't taste remarkably strange and different, I would eat these again. And I'll try some of the other kinds if I get the opportunity, especially the ones that supposedly taste like gum drops or cotton candy. I read how the original name for the tear drop grapes was "witch's fingers," but potential buyers thought this moniker was gross and off-putting. Personally, if the Grapery wants to entice consumers like me, I would love the more interesting, morbid title. (If you're wondering, the witch's finger/tear drop grapes are long like the moon drops, only with a tapering shape on one end, to sort of resemble fingers, with a little imagination.)
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