My experience with the 2003 harvest has really brought home to me the
importance of limiting the production if you want quality wine. My hobby
vinyard had about 250 vines producing last year, I use close spacing, 4 x 5,
and I fed the birds at least half the grapes. I still made 120 gals of wine!
Compared to the year before when I thinned much more agressively, the wine
is tasteless and watery. There are no off flavors, no evident cellar
problems, just plain old watery wine. I bought bird netting this year and am
really cutting the crop back to maybe half of what we had last year. It was
a lesson I'll never forget! You can read it in a book but it doesn't really
make an impact like tasting a barrel of cab franc/merlot that tastes like
its maybe 1/3 chardonnay with some water added! So my advice is plant some
extra, buy bird netting, and severely limit the yields.
"William Frazier" > wrote in message
...
>
> kenny wrote "Thanks for the information I will set down and work out how
> much I think I will really need I was a little aggressive with the amount
of
> wine I need in a year probably 50 gallons will be more in the balll park.
> that is with putting 1/2 up to age for an extended time."
>
> Kenny - The old suggestion of 1 gallon wine per vine is a good ballpark
> figure. But don't let that stop you from planting several hundred vines
if
> you have the room and the interest. With lots of vines you can limit the
> clusters of grapes per vine and increase the quality of your harvest.
Also,
> you will have bad weather some years and if you have lots of vines you may
> still have enough grapes for your wine. And, you may end up selling part
of
> your harvest to offset the cost of chemicals, fertilizer, etc. I would
> leave 10 feet between rows...makes it much easier to drive the tractor
> through the vineyard to spray fungicide and insecticide. This farming you
> know.
>
> Bill Frazier
> Olathe, Kansas
>
>