Northern Plains

Hello everyone. I've been a lurker for a long time and a winemaker for even longer - 12+ years. I'm in North Dakota which makes it challenging to find decent grapes so I have mostly made wines from other fruits. But I am trying to find some property now to start some grapes and eventually get my winery established.

Any other Northern growers/winemakers?

Welcome to the forum, Greg. Lots of "Country" winemakers here!

Welcome to the site

Welcome NP, glad we got you to finally sign in. Sorry you are way north of me for any help!

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome Greg to the forum.....

I'm over here in NW Minnesota....but I don't had any grapes, just wishful thinking on that part...

Hi welcome to winemakingtalk

Julie said:

Hi welcome to winemakingtalk

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Hi. Im reading ur topic. I like it but my englist is poor so i m reading slowly

Thanks everyone. This is a great resource.

We have been trying obtain a 12 acre farmstead right off of a freeway exit in a high traffic area just 20 minutes away from our home. The property was short-saled and we had a bid on it. We found out yesterday that the bank selected us to sell the property to. So, it looks like I will become very busy this year. We have some work to do on the place and of course need to start getting things prepped for planting grapes. I hope to have my winery in operation by 2013 and product for sale by 2014.

Now, gotta raise some capital.

Welcome GreginND. I am in New York State near the Canadian border near Lake Champlain. We are zone 4 here so it should be similar to you there. It is a lot to go through, but if you follow my thread here http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f25/champlain-valley-my-vineyard-19820/ I document my vineyard from beginning to now having a commercial license for about 2 years.

Begin with your USDA hardiness zone rating. There is a new improved tool for determining it. Just google USDA Hardiness Zone and go to the USDA site for it and check for the interactive tool.

My boys just withdrew their offer on a 27 acre farm about 25 miles away from me after deciding they want to help me more first to learn more about the whole process before striking out on their own.

Good luck, you have a lot of work ahead of you!

Welcome aboard!!!

grapeman said:

Welcome GreginND. I am in New York State near the Canadian border near Lake Champlain. We are zone 4 here so it should be similar to you there.

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Thanks. I've had your winery bookmarked but I hadn't seen your long thread yet. I'll have to sit down for a week and read through it!

We are zone 4 here in the southern part of ND and the valley. I think we'll have some of the same grapes. I already have plans for Marquette and Petite Pearl. I am trying to decide probably 5 varieties to start with and I'll start with small plantings. I will still live in town 20 miles away and have a more than full time job. Have you grown La Crescent? I love the apricot meets florals in this grape.

LaCrescent is a great grape for wine. I took gold in 2009 in the Winemaker Magazine COmpetition to see how it compared. It is a leading winner of the Minnesota Cold Climate Competition every year. It could be a bit higher in disease resistance but is very manageable with a spray program. I am planting an additional acre of them this year (25% of my new planting).

After going the route I went, I probably would recommend new growers begin with fewer select varieties and grow larger amounts of them. That way you can begin to make wine in a few years more easily if you have say 200 vines of 4 kinds rather than 40 vines of 20 kinds. That way you get an amount more grapes to make wine from of a single grape variety. Make sense?
Choices:
Marquette, St Croix, Petite Pearl, Leon Millot and maybe Frontenac

LaCrescent, St Pepin, Brianna, Edelweiss, NY76.0844.24 (soon to be named and released).

Yes, that's my thought exactly. Four-five varieties and focus on them. If I want to make others, I can source the grapes from other growers. I like Brianna and Edelweiss too but I think those are challenging in North Dakota.

Do you ever attend the Cold Climate Conference? I think I will be speaking there next year on wine and grape chemistry. I haven't been to that conference yet.

What Cold Climate Conference are you talking about? There are a number of them around now. I never seem to have time or money to travel very far to them. What is difficult about those two there? They do fine here and the Edelweiss you need to pick before the brix gets over 17-18 as the pH raises too quickly after that. They are both plenty hardy enough to make it in zone 4.

Welcome GreginND, I am in south central Minnesota also zone 4. I have 200 vines consisting of 10 varieties. For my personal use this give me alot of options for blending varieties. I can understand what grapeman is saying about less varieties if you plan on going commercial.

Sorry, I was talking about the Minnesota cold climate conference. I'll have to look at Edelweiss and Brianna again. I was under the impression from folks doing test plots in ND that they were not as hardy but those may have been further north in zone 3.

Thanks Farmer. Do you use all of your grapes? If you have 10 varieties, I'd love to get ahold of some and try my hands at other wines. I will be looking to buy grapes at some point.

I thought you might mean the Minn Conference. I could have gone to that this year, but money was just too tight to front before the conference. Our wine group is a stakeholder in the Northern Grapes Project. They had a stakeholders meeting before the conference. I could have represented us, but opted to send a younger man. I offered to let them use my training system trial as part of the grant application, but Tim Martinson decided to use Coyote Moon to work with instead. He still works with me on a limited basis for the trial and is named in my new 2012 NE SARE grant as Extension Outreach. Justine Vanden Heuvel is my tech advisor and is working with me on an article for Wines and Vines. These are exciting times for Cold Climate Grapes. Glad to have you onboard.

For now I am using all my grapes and have a few friends that would take some if avalable. Sorry I don't have extra grapes.