Although Festina Lente produces a number of different types of wine only one grape is planted in the vineyard.  In Texas this grape is commonly known as Black Spanish.  In Florida it is not only unknown but of a verity believed impossible to grow in Florida’s hot, bug plagued environment.  It is best believed to be an ancient and intentional hybridization of native aestivalis and a European vinifera, possibly from Bordeaux.  Vitis aestivalis, commonly called the summer grape, or pigeon grape, is a species native to eastern North America.*  This grape has a power to resist Phyloxxera, mildew and rot far better than vinifera.  It is found from southern Ontario east to Maine, west to Oklahoma, and south to Florida and Texas.  

The grape seems influenced by Blue French (Lenior) and Brown French (Herbemont) grape both common in Medoc and brought from France in the 1700s by Huguenot vine growers and wine makers from Bordeaux.  They were escaping religious persecution and readily settled in the English North American colonial south where they began growing grapes and producing wine.  There may be another distant European link in this grape.  In 1732 two tubs of Madeiran vine cuttings of Malmsey grapes were sent to Georgia and may well have added to the Black Spanish’s blood line.  

No matter the convoluted source of this grape, it holds amazing potential and is already used in some of Texas’s outstanding labels.  Our goal here at Festina Lente is to produce extraordinary and gorgeous quality French American and American Hybrid wines for local and international sale.  Our first Port Wines will be produced this year.