Show HN: Growing Wine Grapes in My Parents' Basement
hefvin.com
hefvin.com
Woke up to more news about wine country in California burning. :(
One of my recent projects involves growing wine grapes from vineyard cuttings. The end goal is to collect cane prunings from local vineyards and use them to produce high quality wine grapes in a greenhouse.
Please reach out if you know of anyone with a vineyard that may be willing to help develop this solution further. My email is jormanheflin at gmail.com. Read more about my project on hefvin.com and below:
When grape leaves drop in the fall, canes leftover from the previous growing season enter winter dormancy. 90% of these dormant canes are removed every winter to make room on the trellis for new growth. Vineyard workers usually chop or burn these cuttings and return them into the soil. Hefvin takes these prunings and uses them to grow grapes hydroponically, in a controlled environment. Then, we sell the grapes back to wineries.
We provide wineries with the highest quality grapes, which allows them to make excellent wines. By growing the grapes in a controlled environment, we reduce year-to-year variability in fruit quality, and maximize the flavor potential of every cluster.
See website for pictures
Interesting! How does that square with the story that the distinctive qualities of specific grapes/vineyards is dependent on the regional and localized soil conditions and climate?
At least in the case of chopping and returning to the soil, the nutrients are being recycled, available for the vine to use next season. Aren't you going to harm their nutrient cycle by taking the cuttings away?
Larry Williams, a professor at UC Davis did a lot of work on this. He found that canes are not a significant contributor to vine nutrient status. Only 2% of the nitrogen that falls to the ground in canes ends up back in the vine the next year.
Did you actually get any fruit already? What is the yield per plant? What are you going to do with the wood after the fruit is set: are you overwintering it or throwing away?
I have gotten fruit. About 50% of the cuttings I use produce fruit right now. I am still working to optimize the process. I throw the cuttings away after they produce fruit. More cuttings can be collected each year as canes are pruned in the vineyard.
This is inaccurate and misleading. . Every greenhouse grower is at risk of disease/pest/fungal pressures, especially the one known as Thrips.
You are correct. Every greenhouse of course has risk associated with it. However, it is less than in the field if managed properly. In general, thrips are a minor problem on wine and raisin grapes in California. From what I have read they are more of an issue for table grapes. See ‘management’ section at this link. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r302300911.html#:~:text=Grape%20thr....
Thanks for taking the time to reach out!
These are great questions. Thanks for your interest.
At the low end of the winemaking market ($5/bottle), grapes are a commodity that provide sugars for alcoholic fermentation. At the high end of the market ($100+/bottle), each vine is individually managed to maximize grape quality. Our grapes will be priced comparable to other grapes at the high end of the market. Right now, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon grapes sell for about $8000/ton. However, annual yields fluctuate wildly, so our greenhouse grown product may be used by some winemakers as hedge against the risk of down years. Growing indoors also allows us to produce grapes at any time of year, potentially allowing winemakers to ferment two or more batches per year. Growing the grapes takes about 6 months from budbreak to harvest.
Grape vines take up water and simple nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and calcium from the soil. The grapes make all of their more complex biomolecules, including the flavor molecules in-house. Water stress and nutrient deficiencies can have positive impacts on the flavor compounds that accumulate inside the berries. Growing hydroponically gives us the ability to better control these elements, leading to increased accumulation of important flavor molecules. Sun exposure and temperature will also be optimized to maximize biosynthesis of flavor compounds.
It is hard to say if these grapes will taste as good or better than their soil grown counterparts. Grape quality is usually based on three measurements: Brix, pH, and TA. If these three ripeness indicators fall in a specified range, the winemaker will come into the vineyard and taste the grapes. Each winemaker has different flavor preferences, but as long as we can hit the marks for the three quantitative quality indicators, we should have a good start.
Growing the grapes indoors will hopefully provide winemakers with peace of mind. These crops will not be susceptible to pest or disease pressures that often influence harvest decisions. I know right now in CA, a lot of growers are harvesting before the grapes have fully matured to try and avoid smoke taint. In general, the longer the grapes can hang on the vine, the more interesting the flavor profile becomes. Growing in a controlled environment allows for unlimited hang time as we do not have many of the usual pressures like bunch rot, birds, heat waves, heavy rains etc.
The last thing I will say is that climate change is negatively effecting wine growing regions around the world, impacting their ability to grow high quality grapes. The most immediate negative effect in my opinion will be the early breakdown of malic acid in the berries. This acid is important in malolactic fermentation. Growing grapes in a greenhouse with climate control would help to mitigate the impacts of climate change on wine quality. For more on climate change and wine, here is an interesting article I read recently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/climate-change...
Cheers!
Grapes used for making bulk wine wholesale for about $2000/ton. I am not yet able to produce them at that price point. For now, I am hoping to partner with a vineyard that wants to make the highest quality wine possible, and is willing to pay for grapes that enable them to do so.
Making a ton of wine at a custom crush house could cost around $5,000, so you're talking about people with multi-thousand-dollar hobbies. You might be able to talk them into taking a flyer on expensive, experimental grapes. It would be a lot of work to handle a lot of sales one ton at a time, but perhaps easier than finding a high-end winemaker willing to take a risk on unproven growing techniques.
One question I have is how you plan to replicate terroir. TA, Brix & pH are great indications of when to harvest but drainage, soil composition, sun direction, duration, diurnal temperature swings, seasonal temperature patterns, wild microbes, etc. all have a significant effect on the outcome of the wine.
For those who aren't into winemaking: the most enduring, famous wines such are not just famous because of winemaking technique but because of the specific place - even down to the rows of vines - the grapes are sourced from.
Assuming consistent winemaking technique from a cellarmaster, when you get to the point where you can control all those variables and get to the outcome you want at the individual vine level, then comes blending, which takes flavor profiles from wines made from various plots and/or vineyards and selects for specific flavor profiles to make up the final wine.
So, you'd have to achieve what you're proposing at scale as well as with variation across different "lots" so that you can "replace the vineyard" for a given winemaker.
Just food for thought, I like the idea but I think there's more thought that needs to go into your product development and target market.
They say that wines are made in the vineyard, and that has been true for a long time, but with modern techniques, it's hard to tell if a wine was made in the vineyard, the cellar, or in the lab.
Indoor growing would allow us to replicate certain conditions that vineyard managers want. Vine nutrient stresses, water stresses, direct light exposure, swings in temp, all doable using hydroponics in a greenhouse. We might even set up different greenhouses for different varieties, or for different levels of berry maturity. As I understand it, most of the different flavors between wines of the same variety come from decisions made during the winemaking process. You can make two very different tasting wines from the exact same grapes (they did this experiment at UC Davis). Choice of yeast, fermentation temperature, maceration time etc. all contribute as you mentioned. My goal is not to replace the vineyard, as I need a source for the cuttings :). This would just augment what they already have for now.
I haven’t written anything, or really thought this far ahead yet. But $4/pound is close to what they sell greenhouse grown tomatoes for, and their yield/sqft is likely similar to what I could get. I do not suspect that the greenhouse will be located in wine country, as land is too expensive there.
As a greenhouse (soil) grower of vegetables myself, is this actually feasible? Many plants produce based on chilling cycles or day length; do you envision swapping out plants midway through the season? I know for greenhouse blueberries and possibly raspberries it can be plausible to grow in pots and bring into greenhouse in stages just for the fruiting cycle but I don't know if grapes are daylength or cold sensitive.
You can keep dormant canes in the refrigerator for about a year before they start to degrade. After 2+ weeks in refrigeration, the canes can be rooted. It takes about 6 months from budbreak to harvest. This time is the same in the greenhouse as it is in the vineyard. If the vines are grown in a greenhouse where day-length and temperature are controlled, it is possible to harvest 2 crops a year @ ~6 months apiece. We just take the canes out of the refrigerator when we start a new batch.
I would try to assure the source of production before investing much more on the project. Maybe you could grow your own cuttings?
Or... If you can grow cuttings, you could also just grow a plant and prune it carefully. A plant will produce fruits each year, more big and with more sugars because the plant has more capital to invest in fruits than cuttins. My bet would be than cuttings will most probably produce a worse fruit.
Third footnote. In fruit producer's world, some varieties, often the best modern varieties, are copyrighted and this is serious stuff. Older varieties aren't, but the other, you can bet it.
Assure that you are not using cuttings of those (or talking about them in your web), unless you want a phone call from the owner of the copyright asking for their money in royalties
I've been trying to grow directly from seeds from produce we eat at home, with mixed (but not zero) results. Wondering if i'm just making a novice mistake.
(I’m far from an expert, just raised in a wine producing countryside)
https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/on-a-mission-the-germ-of-a...
Cuttings are used to start every vineyard, even vineyards making wines labeled as organic. I don't think what I am doing would be different than that?
After a quick search it looks like grapes may do just that.
Wine grapes varieties have ‘perfect’ flowers which means they contain both male and female parts. They self pollinate from wind. In a greenhouse, this means you would need oscillating fans during anthesis.
A percentage of the vines on a vinyard are constantly being replaced due to disease or mechanical damage.
There is absolutely no shortage of new vines. They can be grown from cuttings, or by laying down (uncut) canes.
But in practice, most commercial vines are hybrids which have been grafted onto Briar(and other) root-stock to avoid disease and increase yield. Some farms grow their own, but most buy them in from specialised nurseries.
The availability of new vines is absolutely not a bottle neck to making wine.
Before I started graduate school, I worked as an engineer for a company making aeroponic systems. Great potential here. I will look in to chitosan as well.
Forgive my ignorance; I'm not even sure if you could wake up a grape vine over the winter or if they need to hibernate for a period of time.
I’m trying to grow wine grapes cuttings in house, in soil for fun and so far I’m very unsuccessful.
Do you have any advice for tuning optimal settings like temp, humidity, light exposure etc?
The first thing I would do is check to see if the cuttings are producing roots. You may see budbreak on cuttings without roots, but they will soon shrivel and die due to lack of water. Try rooting the cuttings in a 75:25 perlite:peat mixture while keeping the rooting zone warm 25-29°C with a heat mat or soil heating wire. Water every other day and dip the cuttings in rooting hormone or soak the root end in hormone overnight before you start. You should get roots and budbreak in 2-3 weeks.
This would turn into a plague sanctuary, and would be a particularly bad thing in vineyard's country. Eventually the professionals will discover it and will turn really angry by that.
Grape vine roots grow quite deep and at some point there is no need to water them at all, especially if you are controlling heat and humidity with a greenhouse.
However, if the root depth is limited I suppose you would need to water them forever ...
https://www.inao.gouv.fr/content/download/1840/18727/version... (VI - Conduite du vignoble / 2° - Autres pratiques culturales) contains:
> "Toute modification substantielle de la morphologie, du sous-sol, de la couche arable ou des éléments permettant de garantir l’intégrité et la pérennité des sols d’une parcelle destinée à la production de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée est interdite, à l’exclusion des travaux de défonçage classique."
which suggests hydroponics would not be kosher, being modification of the arable layer.
Indeed, looking at the local AOC cahier, within each commune we only allow production from certain parcels.
(We have a lot of hobby vignerons, the smallest registered vineyard here being only 0,16 ha, so I doubt grapes are a bottleneck.)
Not only this, but there's been some research that finds that this improves growth and photosynthesis.
Source: I experiment and grow plants indoors as a hobby.
There are a few leaves around the grape cluster that supply sugar to the cluster. The rest of the leaves do not contribute to the growth of the cluster.
And also because this cuttings were probably removed from flowering areas. To reduce the number of flowers or remove a percentage of small fruits is a common technique to obtain good size in fruits.