Growing Grapes and Making Wine
(Page 2 of 7)
April/May 2003
By Jef Cox
Visit local wineries or vineyardists to see what they're growing. If they're successfully raising ripe gapes, probably you will be, too. French-American hybrids, a class of vines that are crosses between native American grapes and Vitis vinifera, are hardy in Most of the country. For white wine, 'Seyval Blanc' is among the best. For red, 'Chancellor' and 'Chambourcin' a re excellent choices. Just don't expect the wine to taste like Chateau Latour. French-American hybrid grapes produce wines that reflect their American parent's overt fruitiness with some of the finesse of their vinifera parentage.
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PLANTING YOUR VINES
Locate your vineyard toward the top, not the frost-prone bottom, of the slope. Run rows north-south so both sides of the vines get sun as the light shifts from east to west during the day. Vines are best spaced 6 feet apart in rows 8 feet wide.
Figure on a gallon of wine per vine each year. Some years will produce a small crop, or you may lose fruit to birds, insects, hail or rot, so plant extra vines to account for any shortfall. One way to lay out the vineyard would be to plant six rows of 12 vines, which would give you a vineyard size of 72 feet by 48 feet. But to give yourself room to turn around at the row ends, make the vineyard at least 80 feet by 54 feet.
Trellis the grapes on a three-wire trellis. Sink 8-foot-long posts 2 feet deep at the end of each row and at 24-foot intervals within each row. That will give you four posts per row. Between the wooden posts, sink 8-foot-long steel fence posts 2 feet deep at 8-foot intervals. Along your 72-foot row you will have a total of four 6-foot-tall wooden posts and six 6-foot-tall steel fence posts. Tightly stretch 13-gauge wire at 40, 52 and 64 inches above the ground. Secure the end posts with earth anchors—large screws with rings on top, twisted into the ground with a bar.
Place a vine at each end of each row and 10 more vines at 6-foot intervals along the rows. Dig generous holes for the vines and loosen the soil deeply to promote good drainage. Don't amend the soil with compost or other fertilizers unless your soil is so poor it won't even grow weeds. In that cage, top-dress the vines with some compost.
TENDING YOUR VINES
The first year, select the strongest shoot and tie it straight up, attaching it to each wire it reaches with a loose piece of string. Don't use wire for securing the vine—it'll damage the tender shoot. Remove shoots that grow from the roots or the vine, but not side shoots that arise from your selected strong shoot. In the dormant season, prune the strong selected shoot back to the middle wire, keeping it tied there. Then prune off any side shoots that arose the previous summer. When the vine's buds begin to grow in the spring, select one on each side of the strong upright shoot and loosely tie them horizontally to the lowest wire as they grow. These will become your vine's arms, from which all the fruiting canes will grow in future years. For more information on training and pruning grapevines, read From Vines to Wines, on MOTHER'S Bookshelf, Page 116.
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