What color grapes are “Malaga grapes”

grapessubstitutions

I've got an old (~1920's) fruit salad recipe that calls for Malaga grapes. My grocery store has "white" and "red" (and occasionally "black") — which would be the appropriate substitute? Or is this not referring to a color, but rather a region that grows a lot of particularly nice grapes? (I'm finding lots of Google hits for Malaga wines…)

Best Answer

I also googled it and it seems that sweet white or green grapes are, indeed, probably the closest answer. Since it is a fruit salad, you may want to choose whichever of the grapes is sweetest rather than choosing by color.

Winemonger's page on malaga says that it is a white wine grape and can be called by the following names:

  • Hunter Riesling (Australia)
  • Blanc Doux / Chevrier / Semillon (France)
  • Boal / Wyndruif (South Africa)
  • Green Grape (United Kingdom)
  • Semillon (United States)

The wikipedia link for Sémillon describes that as a sweet, golden grape.

This interesting Chicago Tribune article from 1890 about what people in NY fruit markets were calling Malaga grapes also indicates that it is a "white or pinkish white" grape, and not the true Malaga grapes, which that article claims were too delicate to ship.