The New Additions: Grapes

Here it is- another installment of the New Additions.  Today I'll be introducing you to the grapes! 



We live in wine country out here and one of the most popular (and prolific) grapes in our valley is syrah.  So we really couldn't plant a bunch of wine grapes and not have syrah, that would just be silly.  We considered planting the whole vineyard with one varietal, but decided that it's better to hedge our bets.  The other grape we chose is zinfandel.  It also does well in our valley.  And it pretty much goes without saying that we love drinking both.

The grapes are set up in two different areas- the syrah is planted in the Mighty Kitchen Garden itself, and the zinfandel is planted in a mini-vineyard (which henceforth will be known as the Zinyard) in front of the espaliered apple and pear.  The syrah are oriented E-W along the wall of our house and E-W along the fenceline.  The zin are oriented NE-SW. 

The Zinyard
Pluot in the back corner, apple and pear along the fence.

Wine grapes are typically planted four feet apart.  For example, if you have two posts that are 8 feet apart, you would plant two vines between them, with each vine 2 feet in from the post (and 4 feet from eachother).  That's how all our grapes are planted. 

You can expect to get about one bottle of wine per vine.  Of course that depends on lots of factors so it's just a rule of thumb.  We have 10 syrah vines and 9 zinfandel vines so we're hoping to produce at least a case of wine... maybe even a case and a half.  Another rule of thumb is that it will take about three years for the vines to be established enough to produce wine.  Therefore, I'm looking forward to the MKG 2014 vintage!

Snoutface: Guardian of the grapes