6 ms·

Super cool reading your posts :) I grow five vines here in my urban backyard in Minnesota, all UMN varieties. This is their third year in the ground, and the fi

• cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Cool, they're fun vines. I am growing about a 1/4 acre of Marquette and Frontenac blanc (a white sport of Frontenac developed here in Canada), and Petite Pearl which is from Minnesota, but privately bred by Tom Plocher (http://www.coldclimategrapes.com/petite-pearl.html http://www.coldclimategrapes.com/petite-pearl.html) I'm not blown away by Frontenac blanc and will likely take it out and replace it with another white, as the acids are very difficult to work with. Marquette is a fantastic grape overall, but the wine quite neutral to the point of uncharacteristic. Petite Pearl is low vigor, lower sugar, and small tight clusters, but it adds a nice leatheriness to the wine.. thick skins, hangs well, birds don't seem to bother with it like they do Marquette. This year I put Marquette pollen onto the first fruit off of a local v. aestivalis bicolor vine and have a handful of seeds from that. Also put Marquette onto a complex Sauv Blanc x (Aestivales x Aestivalis Bicolor) vine that I grew from seed from Clifford Ambers. Hopefully I can get these planted out next year and get started on more complex stuff after that.