A grape is the fruit of a vine in the family Vitaceae. It is commonly used for making grape juice, jelly, wine and raisins, or can be eaten raw. Grapes constitute approximately 50% of all fruit grown in the world.

Many species of grape exist including:

• Vitis vinifera, the European winemaking grapes
• Vitis labrusca, the North American table and grape juice grapes, sometimes used for wine
• Vitis riparia, a wild grape of North America, sometimes used for winemaking
• Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jelly and sometimes wine
• Vitis aestivalis, the variety Norton is used for winemaking
• Vitis lincecumii (also called Vitis aestivalis var. lincecumii), Vitis berlandieri (also called Vitis cinerea var. helleri), Vitis cinerea, Vitis rupestris are used for making hybrid wine grapes and for pest-resistant rootstocks.

Hybrids also exist, primarily crosses of V. vinifera with one or more varieties of V. labrusca, V. riparia or V. aestivalis. Hybrids tend to be less susceptible to frost and disease (notably phylloxera), but their wine has little of the characteristic "foxy" odor of labrusca.

Currently, a large fraction of the grape crop goes to producing grape juice to be used as a sweetener for fruits canned 'with no added sugar' and '100% natural'.

A bunch of grapes	Autumn Royal grapes
Red and green grapes	Red grapes
Flame seedless grapes	Foliage of the Concord grape plant

Wild grapes are often considered a nuisance weed as they cover other plants and form thick entangling vines.

Foliage of the New England wild grape

External links

• Integrated Taxonomic Information System entry for Grape famiily (http://www.itis.usda.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=28600)