Welcome to Four Daughters!
You've heard from Justin, our winemaker, so let me tell you a bit about another side of the winemaking business: viticulture, better known as grape growing. As the vineyard manager, I'm in charge of maintaining the vines, managing the vineyard, and in general producing large quantities of high quality wine grapes.
As a growing vineyard, this is an exciting time for us. Our vineyard has 600 established grape vines, and we have been working hard this spring planting five more acres. This gives us a total of almost 3000 vines to tend, so we'll be busy! Wine grape vines generally produce their first crop during the third growing season, so we have some time before we'll be using grapes from the vines we just planted. Don't worry though, we're working with a number of local growers to provide enough fruit for some delicious wines in time for our grand opening this fall!
Here are a few stats about acres to bottles. An acre of vines in our area usually contains 500-600 vines, depending on how they're spaced, and produces anywhere from 2 to 7 tons of grapes. At an average yield of 3 tons per acre, our 6 acres should produce 18 tons of grapes. Each ton of grapes can make around 60 cases of wine, so our 18 tons of grapes can be made into about 1000 cases of wine, or 12,000 bottles. I know I had always wondered just how many grapes it took to make all that wine, so now you know.
Here in MN, we can't plant the typical varieties of wine grapes that you may be familiar with. Most wines worldwide are produced from vitus vinifera grapes. This includes all of the famous varieties such as Chardonnay, Zinfandel, the Pinots, Cabernets, Reisling, etc. In our climate these varieties have a tough time surviving the winter cold, so we have to plant cold-hardy varieties specifically developed for our climate. These are often variations of our native vitus riparia wild grapes that can be found growing all around the wooded areas of the upper midwest. The University of Minnesota and other cold climate researchers have developed a nice mix of white and red cultivars that thrive in our climate and soil conditions.
In our vineyard, you'll be able to stroll through acres of these cold-climate varietals:
Brianna – One of our favorites, this is a white grape that makes for a sweet, fruity wine
You've heard from Justin, our winemaker, so let me tell you a bit about another side of the winemaking business: viticulture, better known as grape growing. As the vineyard manager, I'm in charge of maintaining the vines, managing the vineyard, and in general producing large quantities of high quality wine grapes.
As a growing vineyard, this is an exciting time for us. Our vineyard has 600 established grape vines, and we have been working hard this spring planting five more acres. This gives us a total of almost 3000 vines to tend, so we'll be busy! Wine grape vines generally produce their first crop during the third growing season, so we have some time before we'll be using grapes from the vines we just planted. Don't worry though, we're working with a number of local growers to provide enough fruit for some delicious wines in time for our grand opening this fall!
Here are a few stats about acres to bottles. An acre of vines in our area usually contains 500-600 vines, depending on how they're spaced, and produces anywhere from 2 to 7 tons of grapes. At an average yield of 3 tons per acre, our 6 acres should produce 18 tons of grapes. Each ton of grapes can make around 60 cases of wine, so our 18 tons of grapes can be made into about 1000 cases of wine, or 12,000 bottles. I know I had always wondered just how many grapes it took to make all that wine, so now you know.
Here in MN, we can't plant the typical varieties of wine grapes that you may be familiar with. Most wines worldwide are produced from vitus vinifera grapes. This includes all of the famous varieties such as Chardonnay, Zinfandel, the Pinots, Cabernets, Reisling, etc. In our climate these varieties have a tough time surviving the winter cold, so we have to plant cold-hardy varieties specifically developed for our climate. These are often variations of our native vitus riparia wild grapes that can be found growing all around the wooded areas of the upper midwest. The University of Minnesota and other cold climate researchers have developed a nice mix of white and red cultivars that thrive in our climate and soil conditions.
In our vineyard, you'll be able to stroll through acres of these cold-climate varietals:
Brianna – One of our favorites, this is a white grape that makes for a sweet, fruity wine
Frontenac – A nice red grape developed by the U of MN
Frontenac Gris – A white variation of the red Frontenac
St. Croix – Another red grape useful alone or in blends
Marquette – A red variety that can be used alone or blended with other reds
Edelweiss – A white variety that works well alone or blended with other whites
These should give us a nice mix to enable us to produce a number of different styles and flavors of wine (sweet, dry, reds, whites, rose, and sparkling). We'll also be keeping an eye out for any new developments in cold climate viticulture.
In addition to the vines themselves, we have also been busy getting the vineyard structure built. If you have the opportunity to drive by our site, you'll see a lot going on, primarily trellis posts in the ground (over 900 of them!). These will eventually form the framework trellis that we train our vines onto to provide the best balance of quality and quantity of fruit while still allowing us easy access for spraying, pruning, and harvesting. Watch for a future blog about types of trellises and why we use what we do.
Now you have a bit more knowledge about the vineyard side of Four Daughters Vineyard and Winery, and about growing grapes in MN. I hope you're all as excited about this venture as we are. We can't wait for you to taste the fruits of our labor!
Patrick Sween
Vineyard Manager
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