grapes cheese bread

I keep a running list of plants that I'd like to breed. I do so because I have this fantasy that one day I'll have the time and space for an experimental garden where I can play with plants in the same way that I play with food.

Somewhere on that list is purple peas (merely for the novelty), but it looks like someone's already been there, done that. 

Elsewhere on the list is champagne grapes. I'm besotted by their diminutive size (tiny ones look like caviar, big ones like the aforementioned purple peas), but their one-dimensional flavor needs some work.

Champagne grapes, or Black Corinth, are an ancient seedless variety of Vitis vinifera. They are not used in the production of Champagne (that's just a marketing ploy), though they were once used to make wine in Ancient Greece. I can't imagine that the wine was of recommendable quality because they are so overtly sweet (sweetest grapes on the market) and low in acid. In terms of flavor, they aren't even very good table grapes (but they make good currants). They do, however, have other redeeming qualities: their size is irresistible, their skins are thin and burst pleasantly in the mouth, their stems are edible, and (best of all) they're seedless. These grapes are primed for cross-breeding with a foxier variety— I'd choose Concord (Vitis labrusca).

But until I (or someone else) can alter the plant, at least I can alter the product.
Champagne grapes infused with Concord grape juice, in an iSi whipper, charged with N2O.
Now, that's a great grape!

Vitis vinifera x labrusca  •  taleggio  
flavors of bread: malt, yeast, almonds, mushrooms

(Apologies for all of the asides. Somedays I can't figure out how to blend facts with thoughts without parenthesis. Or italics.)