What Variety Would YOU Grow

[AlFulchino]

The poll format limits my question but its a very good start:


Ok...here is the situation...I am thinking of placing around 100 vines in a small vineyard on the same land where my home is. We are in Zone 5, Southern New Hampshire.....I currently grow 14 winegrape varieties at our vineyard but by no means am I an expert on what is available in this categor let alone table or jam varieties for which i know next to nothing.....so to gather as much info as possible from real life people...would you tell me what variety or varieties (3 or less) from the categories listed that you would just have to grow and why if you were limited in space.


I will use this information to direct me toward future planning and planting.


Regards - Al

 

[Wade E]

I would grow St. Croix myself as it makes an excellent wine and grows pretty good in my area which is Ct. There is a new vineyard 5 minutes from my house that has been growing this varietal for 5 years now and has just opened last week to the public and produces the best wine in Ct. in my opinion. I was shocked at how good it was compared to every other winery in Ct. (about 16). Almost every other winery is using Cab. Franc and they either all dont know how to make decent wine or that grape is just to thin for my liking. Just my $.02.

 

[grapeman]

OK I will give it a shot.


Wine grapes: Ones I don't think you have


1)Petite Amie: White,bred by David McGregor it makes an excellent fruity floral wine with an exquisite balance of acid and sugar.


2) NY76.844.24 (yes that is the name for now). White, Good vigiorous vines with nice large loose clusters. They have a very nice flavor withlight Muscat tones. Give it a try you won't be dissapointed.


3) Corot Noir- A nice red wine with Vinifera characters and some resistance to disease pressure. Generally good vigor but not excessive. Nice upright growth habit with medium size medium density clusters. Better tannins than most red hybrids.


Table Grapes;


1) Mars- this has to be one of the best all around seedless grapes you can grow here. The vigorous vines get absolutely loaded with medium to large clusters. Be sure to watch for downey mildew and it is best to thin the leaves some to open it to air. The grapes taste wonderful and are one of the earliest ripening black seedless grapes. They will hang for a month and continue to get even better. I kept them refrigerated until New Year's Day last year after picking late September. This is a need to have if ever there was one.


2) Reliance;
One of the best flavored seedless table grapes you will ever get with nice large clusters of smallish pink to light red berries.


3) Marquis
This white seedless variety melts in you mouth and has a delicate sking. Left on the vine to fully ripen, it has a wonderful juicy sweet flavor. The clusters of large white berries will reach a pound or more.


Jam
1) Concord-Do I need to say more?
2)Catawba- these late pink to red grapes make a wonderful juice or jam as well as a darned good wine if done right. The spiciness develops more the longer it hangs.
3)Steuben- This dark purple to blue grape has a flavor you need to experience. It needs a routine spray program, but has a load of grapes on a vine.


Hope this helps you a bit Al. Do I grow these? You Betcha!

 

[AlFulchino]

wow, i am very impressed w the answers thus far and hope more folks will chime in.


Wade I very much appreciate your comments. It is worth a lot more than 2ctsfor me! I currently have 100 St Croix so I am very much looking forward to making my own w this. You really have hit on something that I think is rampant in this business....lots of wine that a person would not want to drink a second time...and perhaps I will partly be grouped in that arena someday....I recall holding a family reuion a couple of years back and everyone brought me wines...mostly from CA.....on some of them I thought I was sucking oak thru a straw....and they were from the holy grail of grape families...vinifera......Also you give great hope a *new* wine can actually outdo the older varieties!


I believe sincerely that a lot of people in zones that can grow something vinifera sounding will always do so because of name recognition and prestige by association...and Cab Franc can deliver that.....in the end however..wine making matters doesnt it! I am very glad to hear from you that St Croix is delivering...that means w 100 vines I have a *chance* to make some decent wine if i dont get in its way! I have some family south of you...if I get down that way I will have to look up the winery you speak of.....could you tell me its name? Thank you.


Apple! Wow!.....This i am sure is helpful not just for me but others reading as well! Right before you wrote this, my wife and I were discussing what to grow and we really started thinking that we should go table and jam since we already have so many wine grape vines....and lo and behold you gave us so much great info......on the wine side I have been thinking of Corot Noir but now I have two more varietiesthat ANY curiousviticulturist is going to just *have to*look into.


My problem is I want to grow *everything* I read the replies to my wife and now she is all over the internet looking into these as well


I am thinking this at the moment..i may split the new vineyard intro three groups,,,jam, table and a test area for new (to me) varieties that I can use to test and introduce into the current vineyard either thru expansion or replacemet when i cullEdited by: Al Fulchino

 

[smurfe]

Well, where I live I am very limited to what I can grow unless I want to set up camp next to the vines and baby them 24/7. Here it is Muscadines which will actually cover all 3 Poll choices and unfortunately I am not a big fan of Muscadine wine. I do love to eat them fresh though. There are a few table grapes that will grow here I guess though.


We do have one local vineyard that has good success with Norton/Cynthiana grapes but I hear they really have a lot of work monitoring them for disease and mildew. Norton makes a great red wine but I don't think the soil here produces near the flavorful grape that grows in areas like Missouri or Tennessee. The best Norton wine I ever had came from a winery in Gatlinburg, TN. I would love to grow some Norton's.

 

[Wade E]

Al, It is called Walker Road Vineyard and is in Woodbury, Ct. He has a bunch more varieties growing now but they are in their early years and said some have produced enough to sell but they are young vines and he was not happy selling them yet as he thought they werent up to his standards as of yet. On the other hand my friend has some Mars grapes growing and last year gave me some jam made from them and it was really good and even shared a few as fresh of the vine and were very tasty in that aspect also. this year was not good for him as he had massive amounts early but shriveled up and died. He did nothing with them as far as pruning or thinning and this was his 3rd year and most likely that was the problem. I tried to tell him to do so but he was dead set on letting mother nature do its thing and now is sorry he didnt listen to me as they are bare. I know nothing of growing or pruning but know that it should be done. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you and hope you are very happy with all you have going on. If your ever in the area PM me and we'll hit a few of the better wineries around here as there are a few that produce some very nice white and fruit wines. I have a pretty good supply to share also.

 

[AlFulchino]

wow Smurf I have heard mention of the muscadines and the Norton/Cynthiana has sounded intriguing to me as well. How is the soil in your area? How deep can the roots go? Is the water table high? Like mine is right now


The Norton that you said was the best you ever had....parse this for me...was it the best Norton you ever had because it was *damn* good and you would rave about it to others? Or is it just simply the best of a less prestigious lot?
Wade...thank you for the new input...I will pm you if i am that way and please you and ANYONE here..if ever near southern NH do the same....I dont have more than a few hundred wines in my cellar, but they are ready to share! All my wine is my own made from CA grapes and an Amarone kit from CC that I might be *convinced* to open ....i hope to make very small amounts of wine this year from my own grapes from the few clusters I left on..but more likley will be table tasting from them.

 

[AlFulchino]

Wade, I went to Walker Road's website and came across something interesting...i was wondering if you knew what their St Croix was blended with...they say it is from *purchased* grapes...i am wondering if it is from locally grown or maybe even CA grapes....do you happen to know?

http://scour.com/view/result/?URL=http://walkerroadvineyards.com/Vineyard%20website_files/page0002.htm


Walker Road Red Table Wine is a dry full-bodied red wine, fermented from St Croix grapes (70%) grown in Woodbury and at a local vineyard in Watertown. This allows us to crush and process these grapes within hours of harvesting.<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The balance of the wine (30%) is from purchased grapes, which allows us to balance critical properties and taste. Blending is an important part of wine making with an honored tradition in all significant winemaking regions. This wine is completely dry, but softened by slow cool fermentation and oak barrel storage.

 

[Wade E]

Yes, I did see that and Watertown is 1 town away from me also in the other direction but does not sell to the public.

 

[grapeman]

I hadn't listed St. Croix because I knew Al had it growing already as well as Sabrevois( if I recall correctly). The St. Croix does make a very nice wine, but from what I have seen needs a bit of blending. If done correctly Sabrevois needs no blending to make an equally good wine on it's own. I used GR-7 last year to blend in the St. Croix and will probably even add another with a bit more tannins. I would NOT recommend GR-7 for your site Al. Your site is very vigorous and so is GR-7 to the extreme! It makes a very good wine base, but the vines tend to be excessively vigorous.

 

[AlFulchino]

tell me something.....if you folks were to say a wine such as Sabrevois ( which yes i am growing)..or St Croix..or a Corot Noir or any otherwine grape we are now growing outside of CA and other famous wine regions, is a ****good*** wine......does its ***newness*** prevent you from having your taste buds say its ***just as good quality wise****?
or...


do the best of the wine grapes from outside the famous wine regions rank anwhere near the wine grapes from the famous regions in say a blind taste test.....???

 

[grapeman]

Wine made from grapes grown outside of California today is like wine made from grapes outside of Europe 50 years ago.A lot of it is as good or better. There are a number of white wines and a few reds that have beat out all California wines in competitions. A lot of it is in the perception of the drinker. Reds from California in general are probably still better. The hybrids need to use some type of hardy grape to survive and that can impart a slight native taste. That's why the new wines being bred are selected to minimize that. Some of them are getting very close, but still fall short of the BEST vinifera. There are however a lot of wines made from non vinifera that are better than a lot of vinifera grapes- does that make sense to you? I would rather have a well made "non-vinifera" wine than a poorly made vinifera wine.
Many Finger Lakes wines are already beating out California and other wines in head to head blind competitions. Try it yourself. Get a well made Traminette and stack it up against a Riesling. I would pit the Petite Amie or LaCrescent I made last year against any Riesling anyday! When an aquaintence his friend and I sampled my wines a few weeks ago, they brought a very good Riesling with them. We all prefered my wines to that one- although it was very good also.




The reason why I say a "good wine" is because it is one I would buy , drink and buy again. If I don't like a wine, I will not drink it again much less buy more of it just because it has a good name behind it.

 

[AlFulchino]

you answered my question...very well! It is what I had hoped....I ask in part because this will all be important interms of getting the general public to buy into what we have going

 

[smurfe]

wow Smurf I have heard mention of the muscadines and the Norton/Cynthiana has sounded intriguing to me as well. How is the soil in your area? How deep can the roots go? Is the water table high? Like mine is right now


The Norton that you said was the best you ever had....parse this for me...was it the best Norton you ever had because it was *damn* good and you would rave about it to others? Or is it just simply the best of a less prestigious lot?

The soil here is fine for growing grapes although you mention the water table, it is very high here. I can dig down 2-3 feet and hit water around my house. The weather and humidity is another thing though. Black rot and Powdery Mildew as well as Pierce's Disease are a real concern here. The one vineyard that grows Norton's has an extensive spray and pruning program in place.


In regards to the Norton wine, it was a very good wine that I would indeed buy again if available although I looked at the wineries site and they don't list Norton anymore and now have a Cabernet. It was very reminiscent of a Merlot or cab. It was actually an award winning wine that took either a gold or silver at the Indy Wine competition for a commercial dry red which means it would of competed against all dry reds like Cabernet's, Merlot etc.

 

[AlFulchino]

Thanks Smurf for the information......these days i feel like my water table is just like yours...






I am not familiar w PD, but I see a lot of people mention it. Glad I dont have to deal with it.