Marquette Grape?

[tbayav8er]

Hi Everyone,

I live in Winnipeg, Canada where the winters can be as cold as -40. The University of Minnesota apparently developed this grape varietal called the Marquette. It seems there are a few Wineries in the Northern States producing wine from these grapes, and apparently have pretty good success. Anyone here ever make wine from these grapes? If so, how did it turn out?

Also, I bought one of these grape plants at my local greenhouse. The dormant vine is about 2 feet tall, with several buds coming from the main stem. Should I trim the stem down after planing?

I have a small property, with my front yard facing South towards a rather busy street, and I don't to have my vine too close to the sidewalk. I will probably till some soil right along side the front of my house, and construct a wire trellis there. Are there any disadvantages of growing the grape vine along side the house?

How many grape clusters are typically required to produce 1 gallon of wine? Also, after a 3 years or so with proper pruning each Spring, how many clusters could I typically expect to harvest from one plant?

Any other tips are greatly appreciated as well!

Thanks

 

[TonyR]

From what i have heard and read about Marquettes is that they are good to about -5 to -10 below, colder than that the vines die back to the ground. I grow Petite Pearl have had -25 below and no problems. If it is growing in a pot and things are alive i wouldn't trim anything, you will get this years growth from those buds. I would say 5 to 7 pounds to make a gal. Pick off any fruit flowers for the first few years, need all energy for the vine and roots.

 

[ibglowin]

My Marquette survived -22F for 3 days straight the first Winter they went into. They did not die back to the ground. YMMV.

 

[sour_grapes]

I live in Winnipeg, Canada where the winters can be as cold as -40.

C or F?

(In case it was not obvious, my question was just a joke.)

 

[grapeman]

Tony you have heard or at least recalled incorrectly. It is listed as hardy to -35F. Unhardened wood will die back on shoot ends, but generally gets pruned off anyways. The one vine will make around one gallon of wine when it is 3 to 4 years old. It takes around 15 pounds of Marquette to make a gallon of finished wine. You need 4 to 5 clusters per pound of Marquette so about 60 to 75 clusters per gallon. I have gotten as high as 25 pounds per vine on 3 year old vines before but prefer to take 12 to 15 pounds to ensure the shoots harden adequately for winter hardiness.

The wine it makes can be excellent resembling a heavy Pinot Noir. Recently a friend of mine received Best of Show Red in the Finger Lakes International Competition and others near me typically take best reds in international cold climate competitions in Minnesota. I make it commercially and it is one of the best selling reds I make.

I would keep the vine a couple feet away from the house to allow a good airflow to dry the vine. Although somewhat disease resistant it can get black rot, mildews and botrytis so the airflow helps with that.

 

[TonyR]

Ok my bad, my first picking (3 rd year) of Petite Pearl picked 2, 5 gal buckets of grapes ended up with 3 gal of wine. Just didnt seem that heavy. The Vines was from another forum ( winepress.us)were a bunch of people were pulling them out because of die back.à

 

[grapeman]

Tony I am not singling you out here but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there affecting people's decisions. I have read about people taking out Marquette and others seem to be jumping on the bandwagon telling about it. I have had one vine die that split out of thousands of Marquette I grow. Even that one didn't die completely and has grown back. Because of research I have done here I have pushed cropping levels way beyond recommended rates with yields up to 40 pounds per vine. These are actual weighed yields to tenth pounds. I have counted clusters per vine and computed cluster weight. I have calculated berry weight while taking juice samples as the grapes ripened.

I have had friends tell about losing Marquette vines but you rarely hear the back story of what caused it. Having a cold winter and some vines dieing back it is easy to assume it was because they aren't hardy enough. Checking some one time it was discovered the grower had use a weed eater around them and girdled the vines. Another one had horrible black rot and mildew which severly weakened the vines and left them vulnerable. Then there are rodents which girdle the vines and kill them to the ground. The point is that yes the vines may have died back but what was the true cause?

One important consideration with Marquette is the early bud break. It breaks early and can leave it susceptible to spring freezes. Ones that get hard hit have more die back than other varieties such as Frontenac. While these newer varieties have opened new areas up to grape growing, not everywhere is WELL suited to doing so.

TBAYAV8ER the -40 C or F may just be too low for this variety and most others unless you want to protect them.

 

[tbayav8er]

C or F?

(In case it was not obvious, my question was just a joke.)

Lol, good one....It gets to about -35C here, but I was too lazy to figure out the conversion so I rounded down to -40

 

[tbayav8er]

Tony I am not singling you out here but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there affecting people's decisions. I have read about people taking out Marquette and others seem to be jumping on the bandwagon telling about it. I have had one vine die that split out of thousands of Marquette I grow. Even that one didn't die completely and has grown back. Because of research I have done here I have pushed cropping levels way beyond recommended rates with yields up to 40 pounds per vine. These are actual weighed yields to tenth pounds. I have counted clusters per vine and computed cluster weight. I have calculated berry weight while taking juice samples as the grapes ripened.

I have had friends tell about losing Marquette vines but you rarely hear the back story of what caused it. Having a cold winter and some vines dieing back it is easy to assume it was because they aren't hardy enough. Checking some one time it was discovered the grower had use a weed eater around them and girdled the vines. Another one had horrible black rot and mildew which severly weakened the vines and left them vulnerable. Then there are rodents which girdle the vines and kill them to the ground. The point is that yes the vines may have died back but what was the true cause?

One important consideration with Marquette is the early bud break. It breaks early and can leave it susceptible to spring freezes. Ones that get hard hit have more die back than other varieties such as Frontenac. While these newer varieties have opened new areas up to grape growing, not everywhere is WELL suited to doing so.

TBAYAV8ER the -40 C or F may just be too low for this variety and most others unless you want to protect them.

Thanks for all the info, grapeman! It's quite rare for the temps to get to -40....Usually the coldest is about -30C. -40 windchill is pretty common. Could I PM you a picture of the grape plant I bought, and the wire trellis I made, and maybe get some tips on how to train it? Cheers!

 

[grapeman]

Just go ahead and post the picture here and I will comment as time allow- trying to finish this years pruning so I don't have a lot of time for computer work right now since the buds are beginning to burst. PM doesn't allow for including pictures yet although it is planned for the near future.

 

[tbayav8er]

Just go ahead and post the picture here and I will comment as time allow- trying to finish this years pruning so I don't have a lot of time for computer work right now since the buds are beginning to burst. PM doesn't allow for including pictures yet although it is planned for the near future.

I just finished putting it in the ground. Here's what I got. Any suggestions?

Cheers

 

[grapeman]

To quickly summarize for you, just let the vine grow this year. Leave all or most of the growth growing. This creates a good strong root system with plenty of food reserves. Then next spring before growth begins, prune back to just a few buds. This gives a more vigorous faster growing vine to establish a trunk. Then I would suggest you train it to a high wire training system like Top Wire Cordon (although you may train new canes each year ) to become your fruit producing region. We will get into that more as you are ready for it. Keep the vines healthy for this year and weed around it or mulch it to keep weed competition down.

 

[barbiek]

Just go ahead and post the picture here and I will comment as time allow- trying to finish this years pruning so I don't have a lot of time for computer work right now since the buds are beginning to burst. PM doesn't allow for including pictures yet although it is planned for the near future.

Besides this we can all learn from the question and answer

 

[barbiek]

Wouldn't air circulation be a problem that close to the wall? Don't mean to hijack this thread but just curious

 

[grapeman]

Yes being that close to the wall will limit air movement however in this case it might be a good thing. That wall has quite a bit of thermal mass so it will help give the vine some protection from extreme weather which will hopefully offset the negatives.

 

[NorthSlopeVineyard]

My experience with Marquette

I planted 32 Marquette in 2013 on a 7 degree south facing slope in south central Montana, zone 5a/4b.

Our coldest temp has been -24 and -26 F in two different winters, after sufficient hardening, and I have had no winter damage.

My first crop, after barely surviving the raccoons, was harvested last autumn at 26 brix and 3.4 pH.

The marquette come ripe with several reliable weeks of warm season each fall. The biggest problem is the early bud break. Being on the rocky mountain front, we get late spring frosts. May 15 wouldn't be that weird. This year was MAy 6. The marquette break out around April 25 every year. I used heavy watering to prevent frost damage, but I believe it effected my fruit set, which is only fair.

My climate is very different than MN or the northeast where we see this grown more often. Being on the Rocky Mountain Front, our weather is very dry. We only average 12 inches of rain a year. The vines are carefully irrigated.

I've also planted a few petite pearl. They seem to do everything (break out, veraision, ripening) about 10 days later than marquette. The fruit set is dramatically better due to not having the frost risk.

Grapeman has provided a lot of valuable info on a lot of forums, so thank you. Just thought I'd add my $.02

 

[tbayav8er]

Thanks for all the feedback!

An update - The vine is growing like crazy. It's growing nicely along the wire trellis I made. The main stem is getting nice and thick, so I'm hoping there is some pretty good root growth happening. Will post a picture later in the summer. It's in my front yard, which faces straight South, so it is in direct sunlight pretty much all day. We have had a fairly wet summer as well, which has been good. No grapes at all, since I took the advice given previously, and didn't do any trimming all summer. Just trying to maximize root growth this summer. Hopefully the roots will be fairly close to the foundation of the house, and the soil around the roots will stay somewhat warmer because of the house.

 

[spaniel]

Indiana is a tough place for reds. We can get very cold winters so we need the NY/MN varieties unless you like re-planting every 5-7 years. Cayuga has produced excellent for me but I've also had to go into the vineyard with a chainsaw once in 10 years to cut everything off at ground level due to -15F temps killing it down.

I have 5 year old Marquette. My only complaint is that, in this climate, the soil seems a bit rich for it and it is definitely more black rot susceptible than anything else I grow. 2015 was an exceptionally wet July, and I had total loss to black rot despite my efforts to control it. I would have had an awesome yield this year had my work schedule allowed me to get the bird nets on in time….

 

[tbayav8er]

Hi Everyone,

So, we got an insane amount of snow this year here in Winnipeg. In the summer, my Marquette grape vine grew lots of leaves, I took the advice not to prune it at all during the summer just to allow it to get maximum root growth.

With all of this heavy snow dumping on it, the delicate growth broke off. Is this going to be an issue in the Spring. I imagine in the Spring, I should cut it back quite a bit anyways?

 

[grapeman]

Yes it should be pruned back to one main shoot or two at most if you want two trunks. You don't want the delicate growth anyways. Often the spring after planting you prune back to 2 or 3 buds which puts all that stored energy in the roots into growing nice strong trunks.