Surely there cannot be so great a difference between plants that one continent can produce many grapes for great wines, while another continent produces none or few. But so it is. Of the roughly 50 species of grapes, nature has seen fit to equip very few with enough natural sugar in most years to be made into pleasant wine. And among the two dozen or so grape species native to North America, only one has proven itself capable of good dry table wines. Some call this quixotic variety Cynthiana.
Some experts suspect a cross with vinifera, but no apparent way exists to resolve the question.
Aestivalis and its natural sub-specie variants are common along the fringes of lowland forests across eastern, southern, and central North America. Early works on American horticulture, such as Philadelphian John Bartram's in the 1770s, describe grapes which we may conclude today were aestivalis. In his travels through hill and valley in the Mid-Atlantic region of the early colonies, he reports residents' preference for a small but highly flavored wild black grape especially suited, it was said, for winemaking. Grapes native to North America have generally not been prized for their wine, especially for their dry wines. Only native American grapes, principally of the labrusca species, possess this peculiar property, but for some reason Norton wines have none of the foxyness.