Let’s be honest – your trellis construction, pruning skills, and blending techniques are meaningless without a quality backyard vineyard site selection.
Site selection is the most important decision for your backyard vineyard operation. It is the foundation for everything that follows.
However, for the Average Joe with two kids and a full-time job, we have limited options: our backyard, a friend or neighbor’s backyard, or the backyards of willing family members nearby.
With that in mind, consider the below criteria when making your choice (while also keeping in mind who will be the most fun to work with, should you choose to use someone else’s land.)
The Four “S” Factors for Site Selection:
Sun – Grapes like full sun. Don’t even bother if the terrain doesn’t receive at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight (and that alone is pushing it, as full sun is the ideal).
Soil – Grapes like it rough and hate wet feet. Stones, gravel, flint, slate, and other infertile qualities are actually very attractive to the grape vine, both as soil qualities and for their contribution to good drainage. pH should be within 6.0 – 8.0. Ideally, no more than 75% of the soil should be dominated by sand, clay or silt (and you’ll know if it is with a single scoop from a shovel).
Slope – Grapes generally prefer slopes. In cooler climates, grapes want southwest-facing slopes as much as possible. In hot climates, north-facing slopes are the ideal. Slope also produces the rocky, infertile conditions preferred by grape vines (due to erosion), as well as the good drainage mentioned above. Closer to the top of the hill is ideal, as this will avoid the spots prone to frost/dew pockets near the bottom.
Spacing – Grapes need space to grow and room to breathe. Standard spacing for vines in America is 6x10ft (6ft between vines, 10ft between rows). So while it might have initially made sense to cram four vines into your 6x8ft raised bed, hopefully you’ll reconsider after reading this post.
Other factors obviously play a role as well:
1) Is the land surrounded by forest, potentially inviting all sorts of fungus, insects, pests, and humidity? This is not ideal.
2) Is the soil at least 30in deep? (i.e. are you sure there isn’t any bedrock or impenetrable clay?) Any less, and the roots may not have enough room to grow.
3) Is there too much or too little wind? Too much, and you’ll have a lot of shoot/cane damage to deal with. Too little, and fungus will be an enemy.
In your author’s case, we selected a site that had some, but certainly not all of the ideal qualities (see above Google Earth imagery).
-The site gets about 6-8 hours of sunlight per day.
-The soil is about 60% Maryland clay with a near neutral pH and a good amount of rocks.
-There is a slope, but not much, though our Vidal Blanc section (on the right/to the east) is certainly sloped.
-There is plenty of space for the 6x10ft spacing arrangement (though we chose 6x8ft for the Vidal Blanc on the right).
-Lastly, while the soil is over 70in deep and in a location with a good amount of wind, we have a patch of forest to the south and west. This has made fungus, dew, and frost a recurring (but not invincible) enemy.
We did take down a few trees, most notably the two just north of the chambourcin section (on the left/west side of the image).
“Is this heaven?”
No, it’s Maryland. We’ve had to deal with hungry deer, angry wasps, thirsty bees, curious birds, and the relentless presence of fungus.
Yet for two years in a row now (Year Two and Three respectively), we’ve produced a substantial amount of tasty wine.
Unless you are hinging your retirement on this operation (in which case you should definitely be reading more than this post), you shouldn’t overthink it – just focus on the Four S’s of Site Selection, make the best decision possible, and get going. You won’t regret it.