We love Alton Brown. Me more for taste, Jim more for the science of cooking as he wonders about this, my strange preponderance with food. Mr. Brown has a Welch’s ad on television that is filmed in Erie County, NY. A preponderance of Concord grapes can be found in Chautauqua County, home of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union), more grapes than anywhere and they are grafting vinifera and don’t have phylloxera because of the strength of the vines.
The home of the WCTU is a small Victorian house in Chautauqua Institution, and Chautauqua is a place where our family shares a history. Butternut Hollow in Portland, Chautauqua NY may help you do a show on the story of grapes in Chautauqua County. My blog’s biggest hits come from my home-town Concord grape post, one of my first posts. Yes, and Manischewitz was right down the street from my childhood home.
Your show should come from Chautauqua County and include grape pies, schiattiata con al’uva and other delights. The Italian “pizza” is a dough that is risen once and rolled out, grapes are added (with seeds) and left to rise again, sugar is added and it is baked. Yum! I’ve only had that in Tuscany. Perhaps there’s a book in the mail that will bring us further on the grape trail… ‘Til then, cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 
Welch’s abandoned its original plant in Westfield NY and the town was devastated at the time. Dee
Actually to correct the post the commercials that Alton Brown did were recorded in Erie County, PA not Erie County NY. Erie county NY does not have very many vineyards along Lake Erie. Erie county PA does have thousands of acres of vineyards as does Chautauqua county NY.
Right now the grapes are coming in to season the smell is intoxicating.
Thanks, Slim, for your correction on that. I’m a Chautauqua County gal and it steamed me that Erie Co., NY would be featured. Now it makes sense and the Empire State concedes this one to the Commonwealth. I can’t smell those grapes from here but know they’re about ready as my most visited post, How To Eat a Concord Grape, is getting a lot of hits! Please do me a favor and eat a bunch for me. Out west I have to buy the occasional bottle of Welch’s white grape juice to get a hint of what I used to eat en route to the bus stop every morning.
Someone asked today if Concord grapes could be eaten raw. Yes’m, right off the vine if you’re legally picking. And they don’t have the shelf life of table grapes sent to your grocery from Chile or wherever, so when you find them, rinse and eat them. I lived next to a vineyard so at age eight I omitted the rinsing step! Oh, they taste so good. Dee
Alton was in Erie County PENNSYLVANIA, not NY. There are not many concord vineyards in Erie County NY which is the home of Buffalo. Erie County is more industrial and doesn’t have the land needed to farm large vineyards.
Mike from Dunkirk, NY
I was corrected years ago, thank you for the reminder. My family spent a few years in Buffalo, Erie Co. NY, and I’d never seen any grapes there but grew up in Chautauqua and knew my Concord grapes. Thanks!