The grape genome is relatively small (approximately 500Mbp) making it an attractive target for genomics. The grape genome is thus similar in size to the rice genome but is composed of a larger number of small chromosomes amenable to physical mapping. Grapes are a woody perennial and thus differ from other species that have been analysed in detail.

The Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics have sequenced cDNA libraries from vegetative tissues and fruits to generate two EST databases. Analysis of the first 5000 sequences (2500 from each library) indicated that most ESTs obtained have homology to known genes. 68% of the clones had homology to plant genes and 14% to genes from other organisms. Approximately 18% did not show homology to any sequence of known function in the databases. The two libraries had 275 genes in common.