La Crosse is a modern hybrid cultivar of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

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 approximately 8,0 ...

, mostly grown in

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. It produces grapes suitable for making fruity white wines similar to Riesling or as a base for blended wines. The grapes also make a good seeded table grape for eating. It has the benefits of early ripening and when hardened properly in the fall it is winter hardy to at least -25°F. As such it is best suited to growing in more northern climates and can be found grown in small regions of

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

History

Lacrosse was produced and patented by American grape breeder Elmer Swenson around 1970. It is a hybrid of Seyval crossed to a cross of Minnesota 78 by Seibel 1000 (aka Rosette). To clarify the parentage of Lacrosse: Minnesota 78 is recorded as a cross of

Beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

by Witt, however many have disputed this pedigree based its characteristics, and Elmer Swenson speculated that the pollen parent was likely Jessica, which was used in many crosses. Beta is a cross of a selection of the wild grape '' Vitis riparia'', Carver, by Concord. Jessica is a cross of a selection of '' Vitis labrusca'' by '' Vitis aestivalis''. Seyval is a cross of Seibel 5656 and Seibel S4986. Both these hybrids are a complex set of crosses of other Seibel hybrids. Spelling variants in use by wineries and vendors of the hybrid include La Crosse, LaCrosse and Lacrosse. The Lacrosse spelling is preferred by viticulturists. The registry the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations registry fo
LABELING AND ADVERTISING OF WINE
however, lists only "LaCrosse."

References

{{American wine White wine grape varieties Hybrid grape varieties American wine