How did you pick your varietals?

[TxBrew]

What influenced the decision to plant the varietals that you are growing?

Others locally were growing, they were already growing on the land, you just like to drink that varietal, etc.

 

[tatud4life]

I just LOVE muscadines!! Lol. I chose my varieties of muscadines. Asked on size, sugar content, and color. Also, cold hardiness considering that it can get pretty cold here.

 

[BARBQ]

i choose the ones that were PD resitant for texas since so much work goes into growing them.

Black Spanish, Blanc Du Bois and Conquistador

 

[TxBrew]

Where did you get your vines BARBQ?

 

[BARBQ]

black spanish from saddlehorn in burton (as cuttings, then grew up)
blanc du bois I got from Macevicius Farms (as 1 year old plants domant)
conquistador i got from Grapes Of Kath Vineyards in florida (as 1 year old plants)

Ive been wanting to get some favorite from womack nurseries, but will probably wait, ive run out of room. http://www.womacknursery.com/grapes.html

 

[Sparky]

Like BarBQ. I planted PD resistant varieties.

I have Lomanto and Favorite. Both are in their second year of production. The Lomanto are 98% complete veraison. It's a little early. They should be ready to harvest around July 1st, give or take a week.

 

[ibglowin]

Mine were all chosen for:

1) Cold hardiness for my area (5a)
2) Disease resistance
3) Quality of wine (all produce an excellent red table wine much like a Syrah or Pinot Noir)

To my knowledge nobody is growing these three varietals in my area. (Marquette. Noiret, Corot Noir) These are all fairly new hybrids produced by either Cornell or University of Minnesota.

 

[garymc]

I started buying muscadines that were labelled cold hardy, then started looking
for taste, size, productivity, and disease resistance. I have 13 varieties.

 

[Corley5]

We picked ours based 1st on hardiness. We're in zone 4A-B and chose vines that should easily survive/thrive here. Then we looked at disease susceptibility and ease of care. And then type of wine and demand for the variety. We ended up with Marquettes, Kay Grays, Valiants, and Elviras last year and Frontenac, Frontenac Gris, Brianna and Louise Swenson this year with 200 of each variety. Next years plan is for 400 more Marquettes and we want to add Lacrescents and will probasbly go with 400 of them as well although it sounds like they require more care but there is a developing demand for them.

 

[mourvedre]

We picked ours based on group (family) decision. We are in an AVA in southern California with quite a few other small commercial growers in the area. There is at least 25 years of evolving information and taste as to what does well here. There were three main considerations for us. 1) Our varietals are appropriate for the climate (high Winkler III or low IV -- we can have long hot, dry summers here) and soil type (not much organic material; decomposed granite). 2) Decent/appropriate buyer demand from local wineries. 3) We had to care about the varietals -- are they interesting to us, and will we care and be passionate about these grapes growing these grapes?

We all like the Rhone varieties, and in general we like dry, crisp, fruity, flinty or complex whites, and bigger, or at least challenging reds. We selected Mourvedre, Sangiovese and Barbera for our reds, and Roussanne and Vermentino for our whites. I produce about 60 gallons of household wine a year (last year one rose, two whites and three reds), and the rest (95%+) gets sold to wineries. We have about 7 acres.

 

[TxBrew]

@mourvedre

Might be too personal but if not roughly what are you making per acre selling grapes to wineries?

 

[mourvedre]

TxBrew, You can check the California annual grape report and see every single priced paid (per ton) of all varieties in every single California region here. Having said this, we get around $1300/ton +/-10% depending on the variety (not counting cost of picking). We run approximately 2-4+ tons/acre on a little short of 7 acres. So, last year, when everything produced and we contracted it all, we got about 18 tons x $1300 / 6.5 acres = $3900/acre. We look more at the price/ton here. We manage our grapes, with canopy management and "dropping" grapes when needed (actions with associated labor costs) to push down yields a bit, to improve quality. The flip side of this is, if we manage aggressively to decrease yield and improve quality, we want a higher price from the purchaser/winery to make it worth our while. We have had some fairly significant past problems with overcropping (especially with the Mourvedre), stressing the vines, and associated ripening delays... so we are more than happy to go through our vineyard blocks mid-growing season and drop significant quantities of grapes in order to give us beautiful grapes without overstressing the vines (or overusing water, which is expensive here).