A new member to my vineyard

I made interesting order to my vineyard two days ago. When snow melts I´ll plant ten sprouts of Pinot Noir on my yard. I was quite amazed when I found out that Pinot Noir cuold survive in Finland. To be precise my Pinot will be Pinot Noir Precoce. (Precoce means early ripining.)

Pinot Noir is first red in my yard. At the beginning I decided to make white wines, but more you eat, hungrier you get. I trying to get 100m2 more room for my yard too so there wuold be room for aprx. 60-70 vines totally.

One bottle of wine needs 1,4 - 1,7 kg of grapes. On full grown vine can produce 15-20 kg on grapes. So in a good year (some year in the future), I cuold produce aprx. 800 bottles of wine from my grapes. For now I´m happy if I get any grapes.

Because this is first year when vines may produce grapes, I´ll make so tests. I´ll use black background and stones to heat the area. Speacially stones are used a lot because they can hold the day heat and release it on cold nights to the area.

My biggest concern is the low-lying ground where frost may appear on spring nights. I may have to cover vines every evening when new sprouts appear. But there is still almoust half a meter of snow on the yard so no hurry yet. The Easter holidays are coming so it is time for good red wine and Easter delicacies.

Choosing the grapes.

Next stage of my project is choosing the grapes. Actually there is not much to choose because there are not many grapes that survive here. And when I want just white grapes I have 4-5 different grapes from to choose.

The main grape for will be Solaris. It is quite interesting double crossing from Merzling (Riesling&Pinot Gris) and Gm6493 (Zarya Severa & Muscat Ottonel) It is quite new mix breeded 1975 in Germany. Solaris is more hybrid than pure vitis Vinifera. Solaris is an early ripening variety with good resistance against fungal diseases and frost. It gives wines which have fruity and perfumed aromas with hints of banana and hazelnuts, with medium acidity. It has been grown successfully in Norway so I´m very hopefull.

The second grape is the "victory wine" Siegerrebe which is german crossing from Madeleine Angwine and Gewurtstraminer. The vine is suited to colder climates as bud-burst is late and fruit ripening is very early. Despite high must weights the wine tends to be very low in acid. The finished wine has an intense aroma reminiscient of muscat and tends to be used in blending than a varietal wine, however the flavour is reminiscent of Gewurtstraminer May Siegerrebe wines are high in extract and yellow-green to golden yellow in colour.

The third and only pure vine is Madeleine Angevine. This grape is more a test than realistic hope to get fruits. Madeleine Angevine makes an attractive fruity wine with a flowery nose, similar to an Alsatian Pinot Blanc. It is crisp, acid and dry. Retailers plants died during winter so I´m not yet betting on Angevines surviving in Finland but it has been grown long time in Cold climates. If there is a chance to get french lady in my garden I´ll try.

My total amount will be 20 plants (10 Solaris 5 Siegerrebe and 5 Madeleine Angevine) I´ll wait 2 weeks more before planting. May has been very warm but temperature is time to time getting close to zero at night time. It ain´t easy to be farmer in Finland.