Growing Grapes and Making Wine

Image Gallery

by Jef Cox

Withjust a few grapevines, some patience and a little knowhow, you can produce fabulous, organic wines at home.

Wine quality is dictated mainly by the grapevines, not by the winemaker.The better the grapes, the better the wine. If you have a proper growing site that has good drainage, access to full sunlight and nutrient-poor soil, you can micromanage their development and pick them at the moment of perfection.

Wine quality also depends on picking the fruit when its not only ripe, but mature, and making sure the harvested fruit is immediately brought to the winery—perhaps your garage or basement—to begin the winemaking process.

GET YOUR GRAPES GROWING

Grapevines hate wet feet, so choose a sloped peel site with good drainage. If their roots stand in water, they'll die, or at least they won't produce good grapes. Site your vines on a southeast- to southwest-facing slope so their- leaves can soak up as much sunshine as possible. Sunlight is the powerhouse be hind photosynthesis, driving the process that fills the grapes with sugars, which, after fermentation, become alcohol.

The grape skins contain all of the flavor and color. The larger the grape berries (individual grapes), the less skin and more juice there is. A handful of tiny grapes, however, is almost all skin and no juice, which translates into concentrated, rich color and flavor in the juice, and ultimately, in the wine. Planting grapes in nutrient-poor soil-even dry, poor soil—will stress the vines, keep vine vigor down and produce small grape berries, which is exactly what you want.

SELECTING VARIETIES

The varieties you choose to plant depend on what kind of wine you want to make, and your climate and location. You'll have to decide whether you want to make white wine or red wine. Red wine is much easier to make than white, but the choice boils down to your personal taste preferences.

Choose a variety of grape that not only will make good wine. but will ripen and mature its fruit properly at your site. at least in most years. The best wines come from varieties of the classic European wine grape. Vitis vinifera. Unfortunately most vinifera is suited only to U.S. Department of Agriculture Zones 7 and warmer, and then only in regions with warm. dry summers— which is why California is such a paradise for fine wine grapes. However, I've seen vineyards of chardonnay in Pennsylvania and Lone Island, cabernet sauvignon in Virginia, and Riesling and gewürztraminer in the Finger Lakes region of New Yolk state—and all these are vinifera Though the climate in the Southeast is warm enough for vinifera the summer dampness promotes destructive mildews and rots, and Pierce's disease—a fatal infection of vinifera—is indigenous to the Southeast as far west as the Texas Hill Country.