Where to start…well, I think this all began about the time we were building our house and we started dreaming about what we could do with a 3/4 acre yard. Shortly after moving in we took a trip to California to taste wines during the 2001 Heart of the Valley Barrel Tasting event. Out in California, the vines were just beginning to awaken from dormancy and we were intrigued by the thought of growing our own vines and making wine. So the research began.
After some basic research, it became clear that we would not be able to easily grow ‘classic’ vinifera grapes in our climate. We found out about the tremendous amount of research and work others have done to identify and breed grapevines with the right combinations of cold-hardiness and the ability to produce quality wine. At this point, we decided that we did not want to deal with the effort of winter-protecting vines that were not hardy enough to survive our winters. So we focused on cold-hardy grapes and proceeded to select a few varieties for our backyard planting. The layout of the vineyard would be big enough to accomodate 36 vines. So we placed our initial order of vines in fall 2001 and it consisted of Valiant, Frontenac and Prairie Star. Initially we were not sure what we would put in the remaining 18 spots. We also ordered enough vines so that we could plant some at the in-laws place in Hudson, WI.
In February 2002, we attended Grape-Growing 101 - a class put on by Great River Vineyard. This was extremely helpful to us in better understanding some of the basics we needed to get going. The class discussed a variety of topics including history of grapes in Minnesota, recommended varieties, pest management, disease management and trellising. Additionally, they had cuttings for sale. We purchased St. Pepin, Bluebell and King of the North cuttings. So now we had an idea what we could use to round out the remainder of the vineyard.
In mid-April of 2002, the work began. We marked out a grid for the planting with rows 6 feet apart and vines 6 feet apart. So each row is 30 feet long and the whole plot is 32 feet wide (2 additional feet to allow center row of 8 feet in width). We did a couple test digs to confirm our suspicions - the soil in our backyard contains large amounts of clay. So we decided it would be best to break up the clay and amend it with some additional organic matter. Rather than ruin our backyard with a backhoe, we decided to rent a Dingo. If you have not used one, this is about the slickest implement ever invented. It is basically a walk-behind front-end loader that accepts a variety of attachments - including auger bits.
After waiting to have the phone company reroute our neighbors phone line, we rented the Dingo for the day of May 11th. The Dingo came with a 18″ auger bit that was a little over 3 feet long. In the first hour, I dug the 36 holes for the vines. Initially I did not plan to use the dingo to make trellis post holes, but it was so fast and effortless, I went ahead and dug the 18 post holes. Then the Dingo was loaded up and driven over to Hudson, WI where I proceeded to dig 24 more holes. They have 2 rows of 9 vines each. So in about three hours, I dug 72 holes with the Dingo. Barely broke a sweat!
Once the holes were dug, we refilled them with a mix of the original clay soil and organic compost. The holes were filled just to the point of mounding them up a little bit. As each hole was filled, the two soil types were mixed together before additional soil was added. Once the first 18 holes were filled, the vines from Great River Vineyard were planted. We placed a stake next to each one. Then the remainder of the holes were filled and on 6/2/2002, some of these holes were planted with cuttings.
In fall 2002, we put the trellis posts in. We plan to string wire in spring 2003. For the remainder of our planting, we decided to plant 3 more St. Pepin vines from our own cuttings and order 6 Sabrevois bareroot vines. These will be planted in May 2003 along with replacements for 2 of the Bluebell and 1 of the King of the North cuttings that failed to root in 2002. We are also planting 9 Sabrevois plants at our Hudson location.
All in all, it has been a great experience. The vines seemed to adapt well to their environs and most survived their first Minnesota winter. We look forward to the future and the day when we are able to officially complete our first harvest - most likely fall 2004.
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