The less celebrated table grape still packs a punch in the Okanagan

The Okanagan is famous for producing grapes, with the vast majority of them pressed into wine, but the lesser lauded table grapes have been a fall fruit staple for decades in the region.

Table grapes are varieties of grapes cultivated for eating fresh as opposed to grapes used for making wine. They are sweeter, larger and often seedless, with thinner skins compared to wine grapes, making them delicious for snacking on.

“Wine grapes generally have a lot of seeds in them and are not enjoyable to consume fresh,” said the owner of Paynter’s Fruit Market in West Kelowna, Jennay Oliver. She stocks her shelves with locally produced table grapes every fall.

“Table grapes are plump, juicy and delicious. They have little vestigial seeds, but they’re soft and easy to eat,” she said

The table grape industry in the region dates back to the 1920s, with the original plants coming from New York State, according to the Okanagan Table-Grape Growers Association. Some of these early varietals can still be found in original orchards in Kelowna.

When the BC Grapegrowers’ Association became a registered society in 1961, the board of directors were all table grape producers. The grapes were packed in wooden baskets and shipped to Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Eventually the Okanagan Table-Grape Growers’ Association established and is currently made up of 10 Okanagan growers farming multiple vineyards growing sovereign coronation, einset seedless and bath varieties.

The most abundant variety of table grape grown in the Okanagan is the sovereign coronation. This grape was developed at the Agriculture Canada Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Summerland in the 1970s, and is a cross between native North American varieties Patricia and himrod.

Sovereign coronation grapes are blue and seedless with a musky flavour while einset seedless grapes are pink and have a mild strawberry flavour, while bath grapes are blue and seeded with a mild concord grape flavour.

Oliver sources mostly coronation grapes from local growers and has a few vines of her own. Table grapes ripen in late August, and don’t last long on market shelves at Paynter’s Fruit Market.

“They go quick, you know, because it’s such a short window for their season and once they ripen, they don’t store long,” she said. “We get them for about four weeks. People love them.”

Oliver said some of her customers are wary of the table grapes at first.

“It’s because they don’t look like the large globe type of grapes you see at supermarkets, but as soon as we have sample boxes out people try the and gravitate toward them,” she said.

Table grapes may not last long it fresh form, but they freeze well and can be consumed all year round.

“We do that at our house, we freeze them and eat them as a snack throughout the winter,” Oliver said. “A lot of people make juice out of them, they have lots of flavour and lots of antioxidants.”

Okanagan table grapes are available in western Canadian grocery store produce sections from late August to mid-October, arriving in stores within days after harvest.

There are numerous table grape recipes here, including those for jams, jellies and chutneys.