Wine grapes for zone 4, 2300'

I would love to produce wine , dessert wine or ice wine here in Golden, BC. Can anyone help to narrow down my vine decisions? All of our soil is clay- silt and our growing season is May 24 to mid- end of September with generally good snow cover

 

The grapes that you can grow in your area is limited to what's available you in BC.
If you can get Frontenac it would be worth trying there. I have it here up in the Edmonton region. It has good hardiness and will ripen for me by 20th of September.
You could also try Foch as well. The big problem with growing grapes in BC in your region is obtaining the material. There are pretty strict CFIA regulations governing
the importation of grapes into BC. Have a look at the Minnesota grape growers
site. There are some varieties that you could try there and they might possibly work
if you use some cold climate viticulture production methods. Unfortunately a lot of this material is unavailable

www.mngrapes.org

It will give you an idea on what is available for cold climates.

If you are interested in starting a winery you may want to contact the

www.grapegrowers.bc.ca

or www.winebc.com

Golden is a nice area and has a lot of tourist traffic so it has some potential.

If you need any more info contact me offlist.

Cheers

 

Thanks for the info, for now I'm just a hobby farmer. Manitoba agriculture has been doing some hardiness test as well.
Also does anyone understand the formula for degree days? I understand what it represents, but not how the total is reached.
GS

 

Degree day calculations are easily made, but they depend on a specified threshold temperature. I wasn't sure what the threshold is for grapes, but I just Googled it and found that it is 10 degrees C. So to calculate the degree days in a season look at the average temperature for each day (Environment Canada incorrectly calls it the mean temperature) and subtract 10. Then simply add all positive values. The total will give you the growing degree days. I hope that your total is a lot more than the 122 I see listed under Tags below. I saw one Web site that mentioned that anything under 2,500 is the coolest region for wine grapes.

 

Hi this will help explain degree days.

http://www.geog.ubc.ca/courses/klink/g470/class02/apirzade/growingdegrees.htm

Because you are a short season area you will need to grow varieties that will ripen
in your climate. If you go to Bylands Nurseries they havea good selection of grapes
there. One variety you could try is Ortega its grown in Salmon Arm. If you give it some winter protection it might give you a crop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortega_(grape)


Have a look at this web link it may give you some ideas

http://www.ristcanyonvineyards.com/grape-varietal-trial.html

Hope this helps and good luck

 

Pinot Noir.

 

Pinot Noir wouldn't survive the winter in Golden and the season isn't long enough for the fruit to ripen.

 

Actually on Vancouver Island they do well.
Thanks,
Bert

 

Pinot Noir will do well on Vancouver Island. It likes a long cool growing season. Some of the best Pinots in thew world are grown in New Zealand. Oregon and Burgundy.
Pinot Noir also does very well in the Okanagan especially in the north end of the Valley.
Golden is just to cold for the vines to survive the winter.

Cheers