Tennessee wine refers to

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

made from

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

s grown in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

state of

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. The state was home to a wine industry in the 19th century that was greatly impacted when

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

was introduced in the early 20th century. The modern Tennessee wine industry focuses on

French hybrid Hybrid grapes are grape varieties that are the product of a crossing of two or more ''Vitis'' species. This is in contrast to crossings between grape varieties of the same species, typically ''Vitis vinifera'', the European grapevine. Hybrid grap ...

and native grapes, which are more resistant to the

fungal A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...

grapevine diseases that thrive in Tennessee's humid

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...

. Most of the wineries in the state are located in Middle and East Tennessee. A small portion of the Mississippi Delta AVA, a designated American Viticultural Area extends into the southwestern part of the state.

References

Wine regions of the United States by state {{wine-region-stub