The Vineyard
(Page 2 of 5)
September/October 1975
John Vivian
The final step is to build an arbor in the nearest sunny spot within reach of the vine. For each vine, I cut four stout saplings with a fork about ten feet off the ground. Cut and trimmed, they are set into two-foot-deep holes in a six by twelve rectangle. I fill the holes with rocks, and later with a concrete slurry if they are near enough to the house or a water supply that the hauling isn't a big chore. A framework of saplings is laid in the forks of the uprights, more poles are laid over them, and we weave the vine into its new home. If removal from its original tree hasn't done enough pruning, we cut the vine back, ideally so that only its four strongest tendrils remain. These are cut to no more than twelve feet long and all but a half-dozen of the pencil-thin old fruiting canes are removed from each one. Probably well over three quarters of each vine is pruned off, and the pruning is repeated each fall. But the vines respond dramatically, producing great clusters of fruits that are often twice the size of the earlier fully wild crop.
RELATED CONTENT
THE HEALTHY PLATE: Recipe for pork tenderloin with roasted red grapes and thyme...
Learn about foraging for wild edible plants. Wild berries include blackberries, raspberries, dewber...
India orders all zoo and circus elephants moved to wildlife parks after animal rights outcry...
With a few grapevines, some patience and a little know-how, you can make fabulous organic wines at ...
One of the West’s oldest symphony orchestras. Almost 90 wineries. Restaurants, galleries and museum...
The wild purple grapes have too acid and "foxy" a flavor to make even a barely palatable dry dinner-type wine. The reds, perhaps with a bit of purple mixed in, can be coaxed into a fair dry wine, and both types make good dessert or aperitif sweet wines. Both kinds of grapes produce superb jellies, too. In a good grape year a single tamed vine has produced enough purple Concord-type grapes to supply our year's jelly needs and a goodly supply for several neighbors. As each year sees one or more new vines added to the family, our wine production increases.
SISSY GRAPES
DOMESTICATED VARIETIES
Other than their annual pruning, the wild grapes get no attention. However, the more delicate grafted fancy varieties need more care, since most are descended from vines developed in the balmier climates of France, northern California or the Finger Lakes region of upper New York State. Indeed, it took several years before we found a bought grape vine that would survive our frosty climate, to say nothing of producing a crop. The superb blue variety Alden and the white seedless Interlaken managed to survive our -30° winters, but only from ground level down. Top growth was killed back each winter no matter how heavily I mulched.
So far we are having good luck with the Delaware red grape and Worden and Van Buren of the Concord family, but they are not all that different from the wild grapes. We have hopes for another good white seedless variety, Himrod, and a hardy wine grape called Seibel 9549 by the Millers' Nursery, but the final results aren't in yet. Our objective in all this is to come up with a completely hardy grape that will produce a really good dry, red dinner wine. Since none of the professional hybridizers have been able to do it as yet, I really don't have much hope, but there's no harm in trying.
Page:
<< Previous 1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Next >>
