Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Hey y'all.

I have an area of hilly woods between the bottom land and higher cropland that does nothing. Maybe 1/4 acre. Doesn't function as a windbreak, too steep to combine. So I'm thinking it would be a great place to clear and plant a vineyard so I can be knee deep in wine once the SHTF. I'd like to get it going next spring at the latest.

I have already found a few varieties I think would work best in our climate and still provide a high quality wine. But, I've never done anything with vines before. So, I Google the subject, and come up with a bunch of nonspecific information, and a few sites that want to charge fifty or a hundred bucks for unique, divine secrets of backyard viticulture.

So I was wondering, does anyone have any advice? Any solid resources out there for a beginning grape-grower? How to plant and maintain a vineyard? Soil preparation, trellis design, training the vines, pruning, cultivar selection, treating disease, protection against winter cold (we're in Zone 5) all need to be addressed. Something with a few hundred pages would be nice. Book names, authors, websites, torrents, anything - someone on here has got to have tried this already. Forum search came up empty though.

If I can just get my hands on a few hundred pounds of grapes a year, I think I can handle the rest of the process.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

I've been trying my best to kill a wild grape vine that got a toe hold in my yard. I've pulled roots over a dozen feet in one direction and ever seen the end of it. Tried mowing it flat, broad leaf poison, nothing kills it. Over 4 foot of growth in a couple of months. I dunno if the variety you're considering is quite as hardy as this monster, but take into consideration that if it likes where it is, it's there forever, and spreads like Kudzu. Indeed, I tried to bring a Kudzu sprig back from GA to put head to head with this thing to see which one would choke out the other. The sprig didn't survive the journey, unfortunately. Would have been the botanical fight of the century.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Yea... wild grapevine can wreak havoc on an area. I've seen it go through forests... nasty stuff.

If I understand correctly, cultivated grapes like V. vinifera don't have nearly that kind of vigor, and are pruned yearly to boot.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

I do know you do not want to try this if there are any cornfields nearby. The pesticides/herbicides will kill or maim your grapes. No corn fields, no problem. I have red/green/purple grapes. Also this year planted two types of raisin grapes. Still waiting for my first bunch of grapes large enough to make wine.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

We raised 3 acres of white seyval grapes at one time for a local winery....which later closed, and I pulled the posts/trellis wire and bushogged the whole thing off and put in cows. About the only good thing I can say about the experience is it was a heck of a nice tax loss....

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

When we moved to the farm in southern PA when I was a kid, my dad put in a couple acres of orchard. I got a wild hair and told him I wanted to grow some grapes. Didn't know a thing about them, but I wanted to try them. He gave me a couple hundred square feet and ordered 18 vines for me. I got four each of Fredonia, Concord, Niagara, Caco, and two Interlaken Seedless.

I planted them in 3 rows of 6, about 8' apart and 3' between rows. I built a trellis that was basically just 5 ft. posts with three levels of wires strung about 18" apart. I didn't do any fertilizing, and didn't prune nearly as much as I should have, as I was afraid of cutting too much.

By the 4th year, I entered every variety in the York Interstate Fair, except for the Interlaken, which hadn't produced yet. My Niagaras and Fredonias won 1st place, and my Cacos came in 2nd. I failed to notice some mold on one of my bunches of concords, so they didn't place.

That year, my Dad's friend agreed to make some wine and split the result. We did that the next year as well. Our family's take was about 30 liters for the two years. At the tender age of 18 I was no conoisseur, but all I can say is that I thought the stuff was pretty good.

I don't know about the more exotic varieties, but those I mentioned (except for the interlaken - they didn't produce anything before I left home) are pretty hardy. As long as you've checked out the soil compatibility, you should be good.

Good luck. Thanks for reminding me of one more damned thing I want to do to my BO property!

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

My old boyfriend owned a vineyard and winery. I spent a lot of time there. It is a lot more complicated then you would think. There was always something going wrong. They hired a professional grape consultant to get them through the first years when all types of fungus and insects occurred. The winery was black hole of $$$$$. On a smaller scale it could work but I would definitely get some help getting started. The best I could tell was it was a rich mans sport sort of like owning a boat.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Here is an 80 page report on growing grapes in Missouri.

http://mtngrv.missouristate.edu/Publ...grapeguide.pdf

State Fruit Experiment Station
Missouri State University
Department of Fruit Science
9740 Red Spring Road
Mountain Grove, Missouri 65711-2999


Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Considerations in Planning a Vineyard
Chapter 3 Cost of Establishing a Vineyard .
Chapter 4 Site Selection
Chapter 5 Cultivar Selection
Chapter 6 Selecting and Constructing a Trellis System
Chapter 7 Planting the Vineyard and Care of Young Vines
Chapter 8 Training and Pruning
Chapter 9 Irrigation Systems
Chapter 10 Fertility Management in Vineyards
Chapter 11 Disease Management
Chapter 12 Insect Pest Management
Chapter 13 Weed Control
Chapter 14 Bird and Deer Management.
Chapter 15 Harvest Management

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Here is a 158 page Ohio State University publication on Midwest grape production.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/b919/pdf/b919.pdf

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

In Victorian England, burying a dead donkey under your intended garden grapevine plot was considered to be the best way to grow grapes for wine. How times have changed...

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Thanks for the books Silvestor. Some good pictures and good info. I think these will be very helpful.

Avalon, you're right that large-scale grape production is quite difficult and time consuming but I think I can keep myself in wine with less than ten vines, after they have gotten established. It won't be easy but when SHTF it's not like I'm going to have a job or anything. That'll be 54 more hours a week I can spend in the garden, vineyard, sheepfold, whatever.

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Now we know why English wines are so :s10:appreciated around the world by conneisseurs...

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

Ahhh, yes -

"A lovely little white bordeaux anglais, with the plummy

Overtones of decomposing donkey, and

Just a hint of hooves."


scyth

Re: Planting a Vineyard - Anyone Tried It?
 

I tried but all I got was a bunch of whiners in my family....