High Hopes For Dornfelder.

The last two years I have been replacing the Brant grapevines in the garden with Dornfelder. Brant is a much underrated grape yet makes a rather good wine with the aroma of cherries. It's one drawback with me is its uneven ripening meaning several passes over the vines at harvest.

Dornfelder should be better as it ripens a little earlier and with larger bunches that make a very worthwhile wine. Eventually the Dornfelder are destined to be blended with Acolon as they both share a common parentage. This should make a good quality wine.

There are two Dornfelder vines this is the first.

And this is the second.

I hope to get four to six bunches from the two vines this year so they can concentrate on growing strongly for the following year.

One thing to note is that the Chardonnay and the Phoenix vines were exactly the size last year that the Dornfelders are now so by this time next year these Dornfelder vines could easily be as strong.