Hi Sam & everyone,
I've been keen on grapes since I grew vines in my garden and greenhouse in Hampshire as a child. I regularly harvested a few hundredweight of grapes, mostly white/green, and made wine as well as drinking copious amounts of grape juice. I was given the first vine, and bought two more; both German. One was a Muller-Thurgau, the other a Riesling Sylvaner. They thrived. That was ages ago, and after I left home (to get a life and clock up a few decades), the vines grew, triffid-like, and demolished the greenhouse that supported them. Odd's life!
Later, around 20 years ago, I bought a Muller-Thurgau and Riesling Sylvaner, rather out of sentiment, to plant in my Warwickshire garden. They survived, and some years they looked respendent, but never produced much fruit. The presence of a cement works nearby, spewing out caustic, alkaline white dust, surely didn't help.
Another life-change later, I'm in Milton Keynes, where my new partner and I have several allotments. I mentioned back last summer (Coffee Lounge) that we were travelling through western Europe and aimed to bring back some vines. We did. We bought six vines in Germany, all 3 years old or more, and very sound and strong. We also sweet-talked some vine-farmers to obtain a few off-cuts from which to make cuttings. Chatting them up and asking how they prune them, and what they did with the trimmings, while offering them a cup of tea (or something stronger) from the camper-van worked a treat, and we came back with a dozen or so 'whips' of three feet or so. It was a bit of a 'suck it and see' experiment. I've never before tried making cuttings from wood that's been cut a week or more and left stood in a plastic bottle of water till we got home. But we've had amazing success. Of the 22 cuttings we ended up with, 19 have taken, and are shooting and developing nicely. Eight are German Riesling (white), 4 are German Gewurtztraminer (White), and 7 are Italian Montepulciano (Red).
Back home, in October, and just after those cuttings were planted, we were offered the 'debris' from a huge vine that had taken over a relative's garden in Milton Keynes. I don't know the variety, but they are small red grapes, and make good wine and juice, though are less good for the table, being small, and with pips. Clearly, they are likely to do well in the same neighbourhood, latitude, etc. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I collected a transit van full of the 'debris', and planted about 450 cuttings from it. With a few other things cropping up just then, I had to stop planting for a couple of weeks, by which time it was too late to salvage any more. I had prepared about another 120, stood up in a couple of buckets, and never got round to planting or disposing of them, with a lot of other pressing things to do. Today I found about 130 of the 450 have budded, and look promising. I also discovered over 100 of the cut stems stood in the buckets have swelling buds and have begun root formation. The books all say that can't happen! And intriguingly, some of the 'bucket' cuttings were old, knarled wood, thicker than my thumb, and now showing a cluster of buds and active roots. Obviously, I need to transplant them into compost, but I'm fascinated by this apparent extra 'gift'!
Finally, I was also offered just a few cut stems from another prolific red grape just a few doors away from home. Again, it should be fine in this area. These are large, and suitable for table, juicing or wine-making. I planted nearly 50 cuttings and have over 40 showing growth. So I'm quite pleased with the return.
All the cuttings won't be ready to plant out this year, but the six from Germany, and another 12 we already had from British Garden Centres, are. So two allotment plots are to become a vineyard. We've checked out and obtained permission, so no administrator comes along when we are in full production and tells us we can't do that. But the land hasn't been worked for years and has docks, nettles, couch-grass and other annual weeds in abundance. So it's hard work digging. So far we've planted the first fifteen vines; the largest, and have begun the next swathe of digging. But it is very satisfying to see the embryonic vineyard becoming reality, after a couple of years of aspirations. Besides the many cuttings, we chose the varieties we're growing to see what grows best in our soil and location. We accept they won't all excel, and some may perish, but it will be interesting to see what does well. The varieties are (r=Red, w=White):
Artemis (2)(w), Baco 1 (r), Bianca (w), Boscoop Glory (r), Brant (r), Chardonnay (2)(w), Gewurtztraminer (w), Lakemont (w) New York (w), Orion (w), Phoenix (w) Pinot Blanc (w), Pinot Noir (2)(r), Regent (r), Semillon (w).
I'll let you know how they progress. We also acquired many pips from several varieties of grapes while travelling. In the past, when I had had poor results with cuttings, I found it easy to grow vines from pips. I thought the pips would be a reliable back-up if the cuttings failed. But curiously, not one of the hundreds of pips has germinated. It's no bother, with successful cuttings (that are therefore true-to-type), but it is a puzzle.
Friends at the allotments have been anything from scathing to intrigued, but many are keen to try a glass of 'Chateau Milton Keynes' when it comes...! They seem unconvinced we really do like the grape juice unfermented, too....
I know this is probably 'Old Hat' to our French cousins, but for us Brits it's an interesting experiment, and hopefully a productive one.
Once the new vines are established, I'll be taking cuttings from those, to add to the ones I planted already. If anyone's interested in trying something similar in your neck of the woods, let me know.
Sunny John & Linda
