Grape Agate is a relatively new find of stone from Indonesia. These grape agates are actually aggregates of quartz coming together in a spherical (botryoidal) shape.
The grapes typically range from 2mm to 8mm in diameter, and the prevalent colour is purple, although they can also feature white, grey, green, and blue colours.
Interestingly, the name is more of a marketing gag and scientifically a misnomer: Agate implies parallel internal banding and a microcrystalline texture, however, most of the grapes have a drusy surface. Furthermore, purple quartz’s appropriate name is amethyst – very well known, but not as fancy as grape agate of course. To make it scientifically correct, we would thus have to name the stone ‘botryoidal amethyst’, but seriously, who will prefer that one over grape agate!
The stone itself certainly is an eye-catcher, and it can be used both for decoration as well as spiritual purposes.
