The Gruner Veltliner is an Austrian white varietal grape that is used for wine making. Not planning on making wine, especially with only 4 vines, but the vines were free - and I'm plant obsessed!! Hope they make good jam or juice!
@Nellilein: We received a couple flats of wine grapes one year, I can't remember the name of them, but they made excellent jam and juice. We got concord grapes the next year, and they were good, but not near as good as the wine grapes. The wine grapes were alot more concentrated. I don't know if it is true for all wine grapes, but as soon as I figure out what type we had, that is the type I want to get this year. Then, as with wine, some years are better than others for flavor.
@JMTKMS: Thank you, that's good to know. I have a few other wine grapes that I started growing as an experiment (and received free at different wine events) and we made juice out of one kind and as you say it was excellent. But these are white grapes that made for a pretty "dry" white wine, but I'm sure with enough sugar anything will make good jam. Thanks for your helpful info.
@Nellilein: I think it would be fun to try some white grapes. I will have to try to get some this year. My son has been drinking all the apple and grape juice, and the white grape would be easier to clean up after. :)
@vanna516: I would love to have my own vines too, but I am sure running out of places to put them. Luckily, there are lost of grape orchards here and I am sure I can find some... can't always get the variety I want, but they all make good juice and jam.
@vanna516:and @JMTKMS: Yes, I live for freebies of all sorts - but it also gets me into trouble, namely where to put them!! You can put grapes in many unusual places and they don't have to be in perfect rows like the vineyard do. They can help you with a shade issue in the summer (dormant in winter), they can help you screen an undesirable view, they can meander up a tree trunk (making picking fruit more difficult, but maybe more fun for adventurous boys, and they can line a driveway by being "head pruned". I have neither of these because of my deer problems, so mostly they follow one fence and the new ones are between the espaliered pears and apple area and the beginning of the orchard.
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