Hi John,
I may have been in you neck of the woods recently...My dad lives in Tyler.
So now I know more about what I can & cannot grow here (or at least grow with great results). I contacted a Purdue University professor who is a Viticulture and Small Fruit Specialist, Bruce Bordelon. His suggestions are as follows:
"In my opinion, you should consider growing Chambourcin and Noiret for dry red wine production. Chambourcin will be somewhat cold tender, but you can make up for bud loss by leaving more buds at pruning. Noiret is plenty hardy. You don’t need the extreme hardiness of Marquette. It will grow just fine, but ripens early compared to the others and that can lead to problems some years. Blending Noiret (low acid) with Marquette or Chambourcin (high acid) would be a good strategy.
I do not have any experience with Zweigelt in Indiana. I’ve seen it in Canada and tasted the wines and I think they are good. I believe it is earlier ripening than Cab sauv, etc. and maybe a bit more cold hardy. It won’t hurt for you to try a few vines but I doubt that it is hardy enough for consistent production in central Indiana."<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">The best winery in Indiana, IMHO, is Oliver Winery in Bloomington. They have estate grown viniferas, but are having some issues, and they are in a wamer part of the state than I am:
"Visit Oliver’s Creekbend vineyard and have a look at their Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot planting. Even with winter protection, performance has been marginal and many vines are dead from crown gall"
So, not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed to find out.
Purdue has a great grape vine website: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/fruitveg/fruit/grapes.shtml
With lots of good info.
I may have been in you neck of the woods recently...My dad lives in Tyler.
So now I know more about what I can & cannot grow here (or at least grow with great results). I contacted a Purdue University professor who is a Viticulture and Small Fruit Specialist, Bruce Bordelon. His suggestions are as follows:
"In my opinion, you should consider growing Chambourcin and Noiret for dry red wine production. Chambourcin will be somewhat cold tender, but you can make up for bud loss by leaving more buds at pruning. Noiret is plenty hardy. You don’t need the extreme hardiness of Marquette. It will grow just fine, but ripens early compared to the others and that can lead to problems some years. Blending Noiret (low acid) with Marquette or Chambourcin (high acid) would be a good strategy.
I do not have any experience with Zweigelt in Indiana. I’ve seen it in Canada and tasted the wines and I think they are good. I believe it is earlier ripening than Cab sauv, etc. and maybe a bit more cold hardy. It won’t hurt for you to try a few vines but I doubt that it is hardy enough for consistent production in central Indiana."<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">The best winery in Indiana, IMHO, is Oliver Winery in Bloomington. They have estate grown viniferas, but are having some issues, and they are in a wamer part of the state than I am:
"Visit Oliver’s Creekbend vineyard and have a look at their Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot planting. Even with winter protection, performance has been marginal and many vines are dead from crown gall"
So, not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed to find out.
Purdue has a great grape vine website: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/fruitveg/fruit/grapes.shtml
With lots of good info.
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