But this plainly is not a Dornfelder - it's a white grape!
Of course it's a huge disappointment and one that has left a problem. Do I keep the unknown grape variety or replace it with true Dornfelder loosing the last two years and waiting another two or three years for fruiting to begin.
What a decision!
Maybe just keep it and see how it turns out, whether the fruit is any good.
ReplyDeleteI like your blog by the way. I'm near Manchester and grow a few vines too, but I'm interested more in table grapes. I think they've been somewhat overlooked, with everyone planting vineyards for wine.
Many wine variety double up as decent table grapes though, but when the public buy grape vines I think most are expecting table grapes and some of what they get aren't suitable.
There are a lot of great breeding programs ongoing now and ones in the past that have given us some good varieties of table grapes.
In Eastern America they've bred a lot of hybrid varieties for the shorter seasons and colder winters. Some do well here fine Lakemont and Himrod, but the early ripening of many of them is only under American conditions (warmer summers).
For the UK we are better looking to some of the old French hybrids like Seyval Blanc, some of the cool climate varieties out of Geisenheim like Rondo and Solaris (some double up as table grapes).
There was also a lot of grape breeding done in the former soviet union which is being taken advantage of in the Baltic states and are being used in Scandinavia too. Here they have some of the earliest ripening grapes in the world in very cool summers, much like our own. In many of their hybrids they cross the European vine (Vitis vinifera) with the Amur vine (Vitis amurensis). Amurensis extends from around temperate China (Shanghai sort of area) into Primorsky Krai (SE Russia). Whilst the area has winters much colder than ours, the summers are very interesting indeed - a bit shorter than our, very wet and overcast in summer(but quite dry in winter) and milder temperatures similar to summers in the British Isles, Baltic states or Scandinavia. When crossed with vinifera it creates very good varieties for cool climates. Rondo and Solaris have some amurensis ancestry and many very early Russian grapes do too.
One problem is that winters stay cold there so amurensis will sometimes come out of dormancy if there is a warm snap in winter and be damaged when it gets cold again. However this seems to be bred out when crossed with vinifera. A 75% vinifera to 25% amurensis seems a very good mix.
With other hybrids though, varieties with riparia x rupestris also seem well fitted to our conditions too. Triomphe and Leon Millot are examples. The drawbacks are small fruit with a bit of their flavour.
Anyway, I'm experimenting in creating my own blog about table grape varieties for Northern Europe. I think your blog is great though, it's very interesting to see other amateur enthusiasts at it too.