Growing wine grapes has an almost romantic allure for some home gardeners, with visions of grape clusters glistening in the dawn and a smell of must in the air. The truth is that growing grapes and creating wine is challenging to even skilled gardeners. However, if a gardener wants to try his hand at home-grown wine grapes, there are many resources to help.
Growing wine grapes at home require patience and a willingness to learn basic vineyard management skills but are well within the capabilities of many amateurs. A growing number of people find growing wine grapes and winemaking at home a rewarding hobby that can be affordable and also a cost-effective pursuit for those who enjoy more than the occasional glass of wine.
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Vines do not produce high-quality grapes in rich, highly organic soils, They prefer poor soils and when planted in too vigorous a soil will want to grow only leaves and little fruit.
Vines prefer sloping land. Slopes are usually well-drained and low in organic matter. Cool night air slides downhill and pools in the lowest place. Vines planted about three-quarters of the way up the slope will have the cool air move down and away from the vineyard.
Trees too close to the vineyard harm grape quality. Cool, moist air flows into the vineyard from under the trees during the day and from the tree crowns at night.
When deciding on a grape variety be acquainted with the climate conditions in the vineyard. The length of the growing season can be a limiting factor as some grape varieties need a long growing season for grapes to ripen. Still-green grapes and a killing frost may mean no harvest.
Frost is also a consideration in late spring when vines have already budded. In areas that suffer spring frost injury, pruning vines to fewer, longer canes delays bud break in the lower canes. Covering the vines with an insulating horticultural fabric can provide as much as 10 degrees of frost protection, usually sufficient to survive a late spring frost.
Excessive heat during the growing season slows vine growth as the plants attempt to conserve water. High heat during ripening can also hurt fruit quality.
During the summer vines prefer relatively dry conditions with infrequent watering. If too much rain falls in autumn, the vine’s roots take up the water and transfer it to the grapes diluting flavors, sugars and acidity. Prolonged rain can cause rot.
Very windy sites may break canes during the growing season and winter winds can be dehydrating. Choose sites that are sheltered from prevailing winds or provide windbreaks. Dense plantings of shrubs, stone walls, terraces, and snow fencing will mitigate the influence of strong winds.
The best varieties to choose are those most adapted to the climate where they will be grown. All grape varieties grow and produce grapes where the climate is hot and sunny during the day with cooler nights and a long growing season.
However, grapes ripening under hot conditions do not usually make good wines. For that reason, very late-ripening varieties are the best choice.
Diseases are a concern where days are hot and humid and nights warm and dewy. Choose varieties that ripen late, produce loose clusters, and have thicker skins, making them more rot resistant.
On sites that receive regular rainfall and morning dew during the entire growing and harvest season, with warms days and nights, the best choices are varieties that ripen mid-season and are resistant to bunch rots.
If winter temperatures typically dip to -15F (-26C), cold hardiness and early ripening are important qualities to look for in a variety. For extremely cold winter temperatures, Valiant has proven to be very winter hardy with survival reported where winter temperatures plunge to -50F (-50C).
Growing enough grapes to make wine does require some garden space, but less than many might imagine. About twelve pounds of grapes are needed to produce a gallon of wine. A single grapevine managed properly can produce up to ten pounds of fruit but the actual amount of grapes harvested depends on the weather, the location of the vines, grape varieties, and proper care.
Typically, space for 8 to 25 grapevines can yield sufficient grapes for at least several gallons of a personal vintage. Vines are best spaced 6 feet apart in rows 8 feet wide. Wine grapes can be grown successfully in almost any part of North America.
The presence of regional commercial vineyards is a good indication that an area will support grape growing. Commercial vineyards can also be resources for learning about the wine grape varieties that are most adaptable to local conditions and growing seasons.
Properly maintained grapevines will last for decades, so it is important to start by choosing grape varieties carefully and investing only in high-quality stock. Only certified disease-free rootstocks from a reputable nursery should be purchased and planted.
Wine grape vines need to be carefully pruned and trained using trellising for best results. Annual pruning of the vines is essential to promote peak production. Grapevines should also be weeded regularly and protected from frost when necessary. Grapevines usually begin bearing fruit in three years and reach full production in five.
Typically, it’s safe to trim after the first frost. In other regions, where it isn’t so cold, the task still takes place whenever the plants lose their foliage. However, it is important to trim before the last frost.
Trimming is important because it stimulates the growth of the vines and product. You want to remove buds that suffer freeze damage.
Also, too many grape bearing vines will weigh the main vine down and cause it to break. Too much weight on the vines might also cause the wire to break or drop, which would result in loss of product in the long term and create more work replacing wires the next season.
Some people trim in autumn, but this could lead to freezing damage because the trimming will stimulate growth and if there is a late autumn warm-up the newly formed buds will die. It’s important to leave them unpruned through early winter to protect the plants through the natural process of apical dominance.
Apical dominance means that the buds at the ends of the vines have priority of growth, so if they start to form buds and then freeze, trimming them off will stimulate growth on the younger buds that grow at the top of the vines (Smith).
The trimming should be completed before spring and especially before the last few touches of frost. Waiting too long to trim will leave you more susceptible to damaging buds.
Also, it is important to trim after the first frost, but don’t trim if the temperature is way below zero because this will also damage the plant.
You’ll need: Clippers or some sort of lopping shear. Walking up and down the grape rows, assess each vine.
On each vine, leave approximately 2 to three long vines in each direction on the wire. You want to make sure you leave 90 to 150 buds per vine.
At first, you’ll need to count the buds on each vine and estimate the full amount, but eventually, you will get an eye for buds per vine.
Another way to judge the length is to trim the length to where the vines on the wire meet the vines of the next planted vine. It’s okay to overlap a bit.
Be careful, though, not to trim too much because it will limit your crop. It’s important not to trim the vine to death. Try not to leave gaps between the vines.
With access to more air and light, grape bunches highest in the vine will ripen first. Bunches lower under the shady leaf canopy ripen later. As grapes ripen, desirable sugar content and acidity depend on healthy well-placed leaves that take in plenty of sunshine.
Weather also plays an important role in grape ripening. Cloudy, wet weather can adversely affect sugar levels, keeping them low. Cool nights enhance the vine’s ability to make color pigment while too warm nights can impair the color process in some varieties.
An important principle to remember is the better the grapes, the better the wine. Unlike other fruits, grapes do not continue ripening after being picked so grape growers must micromanage grape development and pick them at the moment of perfection.
The three most important factors that determine when it’s time to harvest are sugar levels, tannin development, and acidity. Other considerations include ripeness, flavor, and pH. Of course, it’s also important to take into account weather forecasts.
For the backyard viticulturist, tasting the grapes is one good way to know when to harvest them but investing in a hydrometer, an instrument available at winemaking supply shops that measure the specific gravity of liquids is the best way to know when grape harvesting should be accomplished.
A hydrometer is used to measure the sugar content of grape juice. The percentage of sugar in grapes is known as Brix or degrees Balling. As all sugar is converted to alcohol the potential alcohol content of fermented grapes can also be determined. A Brix Table aids in making the calculation.
Specific gravity between 1.095 and 1.105 is the ideal reading for winemaking grapes.
Acids give crispness, brightness and thirst-quenching qualities to wines and are essential components of the balance in a fine wine.
Grapes contain two major types of acid – malic and tartaric. Together they are referred to as total acid or titratable acid. Acid-testing kits may be purchased from home winemaking supply stores.
The optimum level for acid is from 5 to 9 grams per liter of juice. To determine titratable acidity the grape juice is neutralized with an alkaline solution and the point of neutralization is identified.
Hydrogen ion potential or pH refers to the strength of the acidity in grapes. pH is a measure of how many hydrogen ions are combined as acids versus how many are free-floating.
The more free-floating hydrogen ions there are, the lower the pH and the more tart the juice tastes. A portable pH pen can be used to assess grape ripeness.
People choose to pick by machine or pick by hand for different reasons. Machine harvests are quicker, yet machine harvesters do not discriminate on what they pick from the vine, so the harvest will also include branches, leaves, mold, and maybe even bird nests. Hand-picking can be more time consuming and costly but garners a more carefully selected product (Calwineries).
When sugar comes closest to its ideal for a given grape variety at the same time that the acid comes closest to the ideal, grapes are ready to harvest.
Ripe grapes will pull away from the stem easily while unripe grapes will not.
Grape berries soften as they ripen, the skin of fully ripe grapes collapses easily when bitten into and the pulp is thick but not watery.
Fully mature grapes have brown seeds. If the seeds are beige or tan in color but not brown, the grapes are not quite ripe.
Most juice grapes, which aren’t as delicate as wine grapes, are harvested with a grape picker. While different makes of picker function differently, most machines hover between the grape rows shaking the row they are riding directly over.
Shaking the vines causes the grape bunches to drop over a conveyor belt that carries them through a chute to a ton crate being pulled by a tractor on a nearby row.
Large grape farms usually own a grape picker and will harvest smaller farmers’ grapes for them for a fee. Often, the cost of hiring someone to harvest your grapes for you will be worth it compared to the price of buying your own machinery, especially if you have limited experience.
When operating a grape picker, you want to be careful of making sharp turns and driving up steep inclines. If a slope is too steep to drive up, it’s best to handpick the grapes.
Hand-picking is almost always preferred for wine grapes, or for smaller vineyards that can’t risk losing any product. For handpicking, you’ll need a pair of clippers and grape crates (you can usually borrow or buy these from the place where you are planning to sell the grapes) spread throughout the rows below the vines.
Quite simply, you clip the bunches off each long vine and place them in the crates. Take care not to damage the larger vines. Then, you transport the grapes to larger ton containers.
Large juice co-operatives, such as the National Grape Cooperative (which owns Welch’s) have grape processing centers throughout North American regions where grapes are grown. They have strict sweetness standards and will reject semi-trucks full of grapes if the grapes don’t meet their standards, so it is always important to test a sample before harvest.
Typically, the grapes should measure approximately 15% sweetness. Joining a co-operative has advantages including discounts on products and participating in a graduated payment system, but a disadvantage is that you can only sell to the co-operative.
Smaller juice or winemakers will buy grapes in varying quantities. Also, if you choose not to sell your harvest, you can always make your own juice or wine at home.
To be effective in cold climates vines must be covered with a minimum of 8 inches (20cm) of soil; 20-24 inches (50-60cm) in areas with little snow cover. The mound of soil should be spread out into the row, around 30 inches (75cm) to each side of the vine. Keeping the mound fairly wide protects shallow roots that project out into the row.
Another method makes use of a grapevine burial trench as soil piled at ground level is still much colder than soil below ground level.
In the fall, carefully remove the dormant vine from the trellis. Prune the vine for manageability and cover the vine with old blankets or burlap.
The vine/blanket combination may then be wrapped with a fine wire mesh such as the insect screen used for windows. The screen will keep mice from eating the vine’s buds.
Lay down the wrapped vine in a shallow trench lined with sand. Slope the trench down and away from the vine to prevent the accumulation of standing water.
Cover the vine with more blankets or rigid styrofoam insulation and then with a large piece of black plastic.
Keep heavy winds from destroying your protective cover by fastening the plastic with long soil anchors, burying the edges with soil, or holding the plastic down using boards or rocks.
Another method of protection is to roll a geotextile fabric down a row of vines in the fall. This method works best in low head-trained vines as line posts installed between vines that are trained higher interfere with the process. The edge of the fabric is held down at ground level using soil, anchoring pins, or wire hoops.
If vines are trained to stakes they may be pruned short, wound with geotextile fabric, and secured with clips or twine. An additional layer of plastic sheeting can be placed over top as further protection against the wind and desiccation. Leave a hole at the top of the plastic to allow for the escape of excess moisture.
A single layer of horticultural insulating fabric (floating row cover) can give up to 10 degrees F (5.6C) of frost protection, depending on the product. Wrapping the vine in several layers will give added protection.
In very cold, dry areas a soil covering topped with mulch is recommended.
Straw is a good insulating mulch until it gets wet so is best applied in areas with dry winters. Keep in mind that mice may make nests in the straw and eat the vine’s buds.
Shredded cornstalks are water-resistant and maintain their insulating properties in the rain. As a bonus, they are too coarse to serve as mouse cover.
Sawdust that is baked or well-composted also makes good mulch material.
A thick snow cover is the best insulator. In cold areas where it doesn’t snow the vines will freeze deeply and roots may die. According to Northern Winework, establishing a vine using deep ditch cultivation can manage or eliminate root injury and death. The following method has been used in Inner Mongolia where winters are cold and extremely dry.
Prepare the growing row by digging a ditch 4-5 feet (1.2 to 1.5m) wide and 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2m) deep. Plant vines in the bottom of the ditch. As the vines grow, fill in the ditch with soil.
This method takes time, usually 3 years to fill the ditch to the top, but keeps the main root system very deep. Temperatures at such depths rarely drop below 0 to 5F (-18 to -21C) ensuring the roots are in little danger of winter injury.
This method is most effective in areas with low groundwater levels of about 20 feet (6.2m); any higher and there is a risk of flooding the roots with water. To try this method in areas with a high water table, placing a drain tile pipe in the bottom of the ditch is recommended.
In the spring when buds begin to swell in hardy vines, it is time to uncover or unearth protected vines. Mulch can be pulled away from the vines and worked into the soil to provide organic material.
Wine quality depends both on picking the fruit when it is ripe and on taking the fruit immediately after grape harvesting to the winery, in this case perhaps a garage or basement, to begin the winemaking process.
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