Muscadines have been used for making commercial fine wines and port wines dating back to the 16th Century in and around St. Augustine, Florida. Today, vineyards throughout the Southeast produce muscadine wines of various qualities. The typical muscadine wine is sweet because vintners traditionally add sugar during the winemaking process; the wine is often considered a dessert wine although some drier varieties exist. The term scuppernong refers to a large bronze type of muscadine originally grown in North Carolina; it is also used in making wine, principally dry red table wine.
While not one of the most widely marketed varietals produced, the visibility of muscadine wine has benefited from the discovery that it appears to provide greater amounts of antioxidants than many better-known red wines. In particular, muscadine wines (both red and white) contain over five times more resveratrol than ordinary red wines: more than 40 mg/L compared to between 0.2 and 5.8 mg/L.
Because grape vines synthesize resveratrol as a defense, it has been claimed in sales literature that the use of pesticides greatly reduces the grape's resveratrol content; however, scientific studies either find no correlation between pesticide use and resveratrol, or find that pesticide use has only a weak effect.
