Midwest wine industries have been experiencing growth in recent years. In Indiana, we have had a doubling in number of wineries, wine production, and winegrape acreage in the past 6 years. I found in your newsletter that Kansas had a 51% increase in wine sales from 1994 to 1995.  Essentially all midwest and eastern states have experienced increases in wine sales production and  sales. This trend has rekindled the search for winegrape cultivars which produce excellent wine and are consistently productive enough to be grown economically.
	The previous activity in these industries was in the mid 70s and early 80s.  Since that time, there have been a number of winegrape cultivars released by NY, MN, and Elmer Swenson in the US, and several released from breeding programs in Europe.
	Most of these have not been thoroughly tested by researchers, and few are grown on a commercial scale by growers.  The European releases have been tested to a limited extent in Canada, and testing is getting underway in Missouri, where Dr. Bob Goodman has been granted an import permit to bring in material for virus indexing and testing. I do not have enough information to discuss those cultivars at this time, but will say that the preliminary findings are that they are not going to be cold hardy enough for the Midwest.
	The title may be a bit misleading because, unfortunately,y there are few ‘new’ winegrape cultivars.  There are 2 recent releases from NY and MN, and there are several cultivars that are either untested, or grown to a minor extent throughout the Midwest.