Cold climate grape questions

[bwine]

Hi all,

Curious about the feasibility of growing a small backyard vineyard in the upper peninsula (UP) of michigan near Marquette. It seems there are a couple of vineyards in the UP south of Marquette but they are have about 100-200GDD+/- on where I would preferentially like to plant vines. Is it feasible to attempt to grow wine grapes here or would it be a fools errand even with the new hybrid varietals, eg marquette?

I enjoy the marquette flavor profile though the minnesota wines were too sweet for my tastes, I've heard some of the wineries add sugar or fruit wine to make it more palatable for the consumer base. Would preferably like to grow something that more of a dry profile.

 

[GreginND]

Well I've had some really amazing dry marquettes that just blew me away. So don't think you need to make them sweet. With your low gdds I would look for really early ripening grapes. You may be ok with Marquette. I'm a fan of baltica - an Eastern European grape. It's light with low tannins but has wonderful cherry flavors. And it's one of the earliest ripening grapes around here. For hardiness you may want to put in some vines in the Frontenac family. The reds are a bit high in acid and can be sweetened. I planted Frontenac blanc, a great white grape. After our brutal winter the frontenac are the ones that survived to make fruit. Marquette pretty much died to the ground.


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[grapeman]

This past winter was cold all over and different varieties fared differently in different areas. Here Frontenac variants all have a large full crop along with the Marquette, but we only got to around -22F. In the Watertown area of NY they got to around -40F and there is little Frontenac crop and the Marquette have some crop.

Like Greg said these grapes can be made dry, especially the Marquette. Try a small vineyard and see how they do for you.

 

[Pat57]

Bwine, If your close to Lake Superior I would think you could try Marquette and Petite Pearl and several of the other cold hardy hybrids with no worry about freezing them out. I live south of you down by Rapid River. I have about 8 varieties, all reds, I'm growing now. We got down to almost -30F here last winter, but all my vines were first year plants that only got about 3 feet high. Most were buried under 3" of snow and they did fine over winter. I am going to be putting up my trellis system soon, some of the vines are getting almost 6' high now. Hope to start getting some grapes in 2016. Good luck

Pat

 

[WineYooper]

I have a small planting near Ironwood with Marquettes, Frontenac, & Catawba. 18 are two years old this year and 18 are 1 year old. The catawbas took it the worst this last year and lost 3 of six, the Marquettes are coming along with 3 over 6 feet tall and starting to head down the wire. Just learning about this and am encouraged by the results so far. The biggest hurdle is the deer, especially on the 6-12" growth out of the tubes. Good luck.
Something I have recently done is go to the MSU website and sign on for their mailings on events and articles with tips on growing grapes, diseases, and hopefully other good things.