Planning your Backyard Vineyard

Planting a home vineyard is a serious project that requires study, planning, a willingness to do agricultural labor and perhaps a small streak of insanity that comes with reaching a certain level of wine appreciation. In planning your vineyard, there are lots of considerations. The purpose of this article is to introduce these issues to you, teach you some concepts, and then turn you loose to do your own research. It’s vital to network with other grape growers in your area to benefit from their mistakes and successes. Local wine growers can point you toward vineyard hardware suppliers, good nursery materials, help you choose your vineyard plot, your grape varieties and root stock. They might even help with the labor if you bring them enough wine. Most viticulturists I’ve interviewed admit that they would have planned and planted differently if they would have taken more time to read, network and plan. Once the vines are in the ground, there’s little you can do to change the basic layout of the field. With that understood, let’s start planning your vineyard. Select