Mother Vineyard-Oldest in the nation

October 31, 2007
North Carolina is "home" to the oldest Grape Vine in our nation – "The Mother Vine!" 

The legacy of Our State's history is deeply rooted in our agriculture spirit! And of the many natural wonders to "sprout" in this Great Country, none has a richer past or offers a more promising future than out own scuppernong and muscadine grapes from their ancestor, Mother Vineyard – the Mother Vine!

The Mother Vine, known nationally as Mother Vineyard – a Southern icon that hears a white marble sized symbol of autumn, is still growing and producing scuppernong grapes on Roanoke Island. 

Mother Vineyard has a rich romantic history. With no one knowing for sure who or when this grape vine was planted, historians do know that grape vines were probably a part of North Carolina long before anything else occupied the land except woods and rivers. 

The Mother Vines history is also fascinating and ever changing. At one time this grape vine consumed all the land north of Manteo, rolling in thick brambles of sweet grapes every fall. Eighty-four year old Abraham Baum when speaking to a roving reporter from The North Carolina Reader in 1858, stated that as a young boy he remembered that the "Mothervine was the largest grape vine on the island!" there were no homes close by. 

However, today, expensive homes with neatly clipped lawns over looking Roanoke Sound surround Mother Vineyard. Now the most visible clue to the grape vines existence is the street that bears its name – Mother Vineyard Road! This street winds past Rever and Kenneth Whitley's yard where the vine grows, inconspicuous and looking ordinary on scaffolding of logs and wood beams. Homeowners had even taken shears to prune this vine trying to "tame" it into a "tidy patch". Can you imagine trying to make and keep a wild grape vine tidy? 

Today, Mother Vineyard hardly looks like a treasure until you duck below the scaffolding into the shadows. Then it becomes a "secret" world, cool and dim with faint traces of sunlight lying like "lace" in the grass. It is then that Mother Vineyard shows it's age, twisting and turning out of the sandy soil with limbs as thick as thighs, like unearthed roots – gnarled and knotted with time. However, before this intrusion, one would never guess just by looking at it's canopy of green leaves that North Carolina's "Mother Vine" is now more than 400 years old! 

Mother Vineyard may be an obscure bit of folklore to people who live in other parts of our state, but it has fascinated Coastal North Carolinians for generations. 

As the late Dr. William Etheridge, a native of Manteo who taught at the University of Missouri, wrote in his papers now preserved at the Dare County Library, "The Vine is a romantic and revered object and you should approach it with the imagination and respect due it's dignity as the oldest "living" thing on the Island and one of the oldest living fruit plants on Earth!" 

"If once while looking at the great twisted trunks," continues Dr. Etheridge, "you happen to hear the drums and wild harp strings of a brawling sou'wester, you may wonder whether the old vine is under bond to grow grapes for the wine-press of the immortals." 

New, today there are many families living in Eastern North Carolina that are deeply indebted to their ancestors – many known and unknown kinsmen – who planted, protected, and cared for the Scuppernong and Muscadine vineyards that have dotted our country-side for the past four centuries. Yes, we do indeed enjoy the fruits of their labors today and hopefully for many tomorrows! 

Thank you, ancestors, for planting the Mother Vine!

Buddy Harrell, Bennett Vineyards