Frontenac - Introduced 1996

Exerpts from the University of Minnesota's Cold Hardy Grapes website.

Frontenac's deep garnet color complements its distinctive cherry aroma and inviting palate of blackberry, black currant, and plum. This versatile grape can be made into a variety of wine styles, including rosé, red, and port.

Wine Styles:

Dry Red. Flavors and aromas of Frontenac table wines can range from simple to quite complex. Oak chips, staves, spirals, and barrels interact well with Frontenac wine. All can increase aromatic and flavor complexity, adding notes of vanilla, anise, clove, and other spices.

Port. A few creative producers have used Frontenac to produce port-style wines of outstanding quality.

Rosé and Sweet Red. Like the fruit of its V. riparia ancestors, Frontenac berries are small, have high skin-to-pulp ratios, and tend to have colored pulp. These traits result in intense juice color. For rosé production, this means that immediate crushing and pressing, without the few hours of skin time allowed in traditional rosé production, results in an intense and attractive rose-colored juice.