Thompson Seedless Grapes?!

[Brewing Clamper]

This is my first post on the wine side of things, I do beer not wine. Anyway, I have a Thompson vine in my back yard and this year I got over 50lbs of grapes from it... and I wasn't even taking any care of it! My SWMBO joked about making wine with it. We didn't but it did get me thinking. I imagine there's a reason why these grapes aren't commonly used for wine but, can anyone tell me why?

 

[Vermicous]

Simply, once fermented they have no character. It is possible to make a wine from them and some companies do use them to supplement other grapes, but an all-thompson wine will not have much flavor. This is why immigrants have been smuggling in grape vines from Europe pretty much since the Vikings landed.

Yooper pointed me to a rather good website http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/ which has a section on using native grapes to make wine. I didn't notice anyone using Thompson grapes, but I am going from memory.