Farmertml

I HAVE THE ANSWER :)

The artificial grape flavour is actually a chemical called Methyl Anthranaylate. It's a food safe chemical (artificially manufactured) that is also used in agriculture as a bird scarer - they hate the taste. /u/Solweintraub is correct in it's modelled on the "Concord" variety but in my opinion it takes nothing like it. HTH

Yep it's actually called "bloom". Bloom is the plants natural wax which protects it and is a sign of freshness.

You can tell the difference between bloom and dust with a simple test. Firstly bloom looks almost blue in appearance on red grapes and white in appearance on white grapes. If you rub your thumb and finger over the grape to "wipe it off", if you then look at your thumb and finger you'll see brown dust if it's dust and nothing if it's bloom.

It's very rare to see a pesticide residue on the grape, it will look like a perfect circle 3-4mm across. Hope that helps :)

Grim, it's horrible stuff.

It's a process called Hybridisation where they cross pollen of one variety with another. I'll do a more detailed post when I've finished work about how this is done.

My favourite variety is a black grape which is marketed as "Sable" - It's true variety name is Sugrasixteen (Superior - Grape - sixteen) and comes from the Sunworld breeding program in America. I like it because it has an amazing sweet flavour and the fact they are so moreish. It's quite a difficult variety to grow but most countries have it so there is almost 365day availability around the world. If you're in the USA now you should be seeing loads of it from the Sunworld breeding program.

Yes I like raisins but don't really eat them very often - I'm usually too full of grapes :)