"Lemons are a lot more sour."
That's the whole point of the metaphor; the fox or wolf or whatever it was, DECIDES that the grapes were sour, in order to lessen the pain of not being able to get to them. By painting them as sour in his mind, he doesn't feel as big a loss when he couldn't get them, as he otherwise would.
The object itself doesn't have to actually _BE_ sour - in fact, it's better, if it's a thing that normally isn't very sour at all.
The point here is not the ACTUAL sourness of the grapes or anything (and grapeFRUITS are sour anyway), but the PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT that is created by the DECIDED sourness of the grapes. In fact, the sourness or non-sourness isn't known, it's just in the mind that they were 'probably sour anyway'.
It's a lot like the other metaphor about someone's car blowing a tire, and then them seeing a house with lights on far away. The guy walks towards the house, at first with high hopes of them being able to loan him a 'jack' so he can change his tire.
However, as he gets closer to the house, his imagination starts working on overdrive, and he starts thinking about their possible responses to his request, and he starts imagining that the residents of the house being hostile and not wanting to lend their jack to him, and by the time he gets close to the house, he's so angry at the perceived unfairness and hostility, he picks up a rock, throws it through the window of the house and angrily screams: "KEEP YOUR JACK!!"
So, that's why. If it was lemons, it wouldn't make any sense, because lemons are SUPPOSED to be sour, tangy, sharp, acidic, pungent, and so on. To call lemons sour is just to describe their well-known flavor. What's poignant about that? It's not a good metaphor.
But to call something sour that usually ISN'T sour, describes exactly how strong the psychological effect can be.
It's not about grapes or their possible sourness - it's about the psychological effect and metaphor that describes that effect.
That's why.
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