Gallons per vine

You are looking at about 3 years to get your first small harvest. Your yield will depend on variety and how you crop them. I have learned that it does no good to have large crop load to produce extremely week bodied wine. For some varieties a more realistic yield would be somewhere around 8 to 10 lbs per vine without overcropping. This would mean that that to make 6 gallons of wine you need about 75 lbs of grapes so you can back calculate how many vines you need.

Some variables that you have to consider;

• Where you are - upper midwest versus California kind of thing.

• White versus red - reds tend to press out at more wine per ton due to on-skin fermentation.

• Variety - there are noticeable differences in cluster weight between different varietals.

• Pruning and spacing - how you space your vines and how they are pruned significantly affect per-vine production.

I am in the Sierra Foothills of northern california. I have 170 vines spaced 10x6, vertical shoot positioning trellising and spur pruning. The Syrah and Marsanne yield around 8 pounds per vine, sometimes a little more - but I thin in pursuit of quality versus quantity. It would probably be pretty easy to push that up to 10 pounds per vine. My Cabernet Sauvignon produce less weight per vine (smaller clusters) - maybe 7 pounds per vine.

Red wines press out at about 6.5 gallons per 100 pounds of grape for me. The whites at 5 gallons per 100 pounds - IF I am really diligent during pressing. Less if I am wasteful.

In other words: I need 2 1/2 vines to produce a gallon of finished white wine, and 2 vines of red wine grapes to produce a gallon of finished wine.

As to maturity until you harvest - that will depend on what you plant (grafted rootstock versus cutting) and your soil / climate / irrigation. Assuming you plant field stock into a well prepared and irrigated vineyard, and that you train and prune them effectively, you will see fruit on the vines in the second year - which you will cut and drop. You will then face the decision of wheter or not to harvest the third year fruit. I never have - although it is tempting. I prefer to cut and drop after fruit set to allow the vines to become bigger and more established.

I'm surious - where are you, what varieties are you considering planting, and how many vines do you think you have room for?

I am in Zone 5.

I was thinking frontenac grapes.

I think I can plant 10 or so vines.

Thanks.

Isn't this a hybrid developed by Cornell? If so, you can probably get some good information from them. Location: lots of sun, makes a big difference in production also. Keep us informed of your experience with this variety. If I had more room, I would try some also.

Frontenac is from Minnesota and would be an acceptable choice for zone

1. There is a new patented variety from MN named Marquette that is supposed to be better.

This link has information on both plus a couple of other cold hardy varieties.

Elston,

I'm in the hills of northern New Jersey and have a lot of trees near my grapes. Last year the 44 actively producing FA hybrid vines produced 460 lbs of fruit, red & white. That yielded 44 gallons of young wine, and that will end up as 38 to 40 gallons of bottled wine after all the racking, "testing" and topping up are done. This comes out to about 12 pounds per gallon, or roughly .9 gallons of bottled wine per vine. I could easily increase the total crop weight by 30 to 50%, but I would have considerable trouble getting it ripe under my growing conditions. Vine health would suffer too.

Four years to the first grape? No, not exactly. If you have a particularly vigorous vine or two, you might let it hang one modest cluster the second year, just to prove the principle. As mentioned elsewhere, you should wait til the third year for a half crop, and the fourth year for a full crop. Even then, the crop quality will continue to improve (even at the same size) for years to come.

If I can offer some advice: Don't just plant what you think you will want. If at all possible, plant several times that.

If you are serious about Frontenac grapes I suggest you read this.

I have another grape to suggest that makes a deep complex red, Norton. Nortons are also cold hardy.I live in northern Missouri and have wonderful success with them. They are very vigorous and are black rot resistant. I have never sprayed my grapes at all and enjoy bountiful harvests. Nortons are so popular that they are hard to get. If you think you might want to try them, get online and order some now. The plants are so vigoruos that I suggest planting them at a little wider spacing than you would other varieties. My grapes were in full production by their third year. All you need to do is stand back and water them.

this.http://www.greatrivervineyard.com/Frontenac.htm

Norton can make good wine, but it is more difficult due to pH typically being too high when the TA gets low enough. Marechal Foch and Leon Millot are French Hybrids that are planted in the mid-west. There are also two new releases from Cornell that might be worth checking on - Noiret and Corot Noir.

Thanks, everyone. I am in northwest Indiana.

I am looking for a red variety, that's why I was thinking frontenac.

*** Any other red varieties I should be looking at? ***

By the way, in answer to my original question as to gallons per vine, Jeff Cox in From Vines to Wines says a mature vine yields 8 to 12 pounds of grapes and that 11 or 12 pounds of grapes yield a gallon of finished wine. p. 28

I think Cox's averages are pretty good. It gets pretty cold in northwest Indiana (I grew up in Northern Illinois) so Frontenac (from what I have read) should be a good variety for you. I think someone posted a while back that there is a new variety similar to Frontenac that is even better. My suggestion is to find a winery that makes wine from that grape (maybe in Michigan) and taste the wine first before you grow it yourself.

While I enjoyed Cox' book, there are a number of slight inaccuracies in it - and this is one.

11 or 12 pounds of wine yields a gallon of wine ... not with any of the vitis vinifera I'm familiar with. Most winemakers expect a barrel, plus topping wine, from a half ton. That equates to about 70 gallons per 1000 pounds which equates to a little more than 14 pounds per gallon. Takes more grape weight to produce a gallon of white wine. Home winemakers oftem get less wine per pound because of the relative inefficiencies of home winemaking equipment (basket press versus bladder press, for instance).

As I mentioned in an earlier response, your production per vine will vary based on variety, age of vine, row and plant spacing, and pruning strategy. 8 to 12 is a good range for mature, full-bearing vines spaced traditionally and using productive pruning strategies such as VSP.

Don't know about Frontenac - I grow and vinify only vitis vinifera. Maybe it is a heavier producing vine with heavier berries.

Axis, where do you live? The reason I ask is because where I live (in the Northern Virginia - Central Maryland area) I have always averaged 8 gallons of wine per 100 pounds of fruit and this is from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc (12.5 pounds to make a gallon of wine). The Cabernet Sauvignon is just slightly less than this but not much (because of smaller berries and thicker skin).

I also worked at a commercial winery in Northern Virginia for a couple years after I retired and the ratio of 8 gallons per 100 pounds held true there also - of course we dealt with tons of fruit but the ratio was still the same.

If you are basing your numbers on a hotter climate region, then I can understand your results being lower because of less juice - higher sugar ratios and perhaps slightly raisoned fruit.

Even though Cox's book is not the "bible" on viticulture or winemaking, it is a book I highly recommend because it explains the basics in terms all can understand and I have not found any serious flaws.

I'm in Northern California - Sierra Foothills.

I agree about Cox' book - it is excellent, and I also recommend it. I'm not trying to say it is flawed - just that there are a lot of variables that go into how much wine one can get from any number of vines . Like I said, there is so much variation depending on variety, spacing, pruning, and location. In my vineyard, the Cabernet are very small berries and relatively small clusters. Maybe 7 pounds of fruit per vine, and maybe 6.5 gallons of finished wine per 100 pounds of fruit. The Syrah on the other hand are larger berries and more productive ... about 10 pounds per vine, and easily 7.5 gallons per 100 pounds of fruit.

And while I get less wine per pound in general from white grapes, because of the difference in efficiency of pressing fermented versus non-fermented fruit, my Marsanne are the most productive grapevines. Medium large berries, and bloody huge, dense clusters. Some of the vines are probably producing 12 to 15 pounds per vine.

I would gladly trade some of my yield for some of your quality of fruit you grow out there ;)