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Recommended Grape Varieties for the Colorado Front Range: Part IV

By Jim Bruce

'Ristvin'
Jim Bruce

Jim has been growing grapes in marginal areas since 1974. He currently runs the Rist Canyon Vineyards. Rist Canyon vineyards is a varietal trial and research vineyard in the Colorado Front Range Foothills.

WHITE GRAPE VARIETIES:

  • Seibel 13047:  Here's another surprise. This variety has been winter hardy for me. Ripens early midseason with a high Brix (20-22), and good acid. Long bunches of compact, medium-size yellow-green berries. Can be used for eating too. Spicy taste. Reminds me of Gewurtztraminer. The vine has a semi-upright growth habit and easily trains to a VSP trellis system. I've only used it for wine in blends. One drawback is that berries will crack with rain during the late ripening period.

  • LaCrosse:  LaCrosse is a winter hardy variety that produces medium clustered, small berried grapes. It is winter hardy and ripens the canes earlier than the fruit. Harvest is late midseason for me under my conditions. About with Seyval. I have only used it in blends. Yields have been disappointing but have improved over the years. The vine has a semi-upright growth and trains nicely to the VSP system.



  • Veeblanc:  This white grape comes from Canada where it is better known than here in the U.S. This vine has a semi-upright growth habit with few latterals on the shoots. The leaves show its Labrusca ancestry. This variety is low to medium vigor but productive. The clusters are large and loose with medium berries. Nice spicy taste that makes a pleasant, but neutral wine. I have hopes for this one but it's too early to tell. This variety suffers from wind damage due to its brittle shoots.


  • Riesling Hybrids:  I have two riesling hybrids that are somewhat similar in growth and fruiting habits. One is Siegfried and the other is FS4. Both of these look like riesling. Their leaves are riesling in shape and the fruit looks like riesling. FS4 tends to have slightly larger clusters. They are upright in growth and ripen small clusters of medium-size green grapes in late midseason. Brix has been a bit low with 18-20 Brix the usual. I have made a nice, crisp german-style white from the blend of these two.


    • Honorable mentions:

  • CSU 35:  This is a crosss made at Colorado State University between Valiant and Zinfandel (I now find out that the breeding records may be confused and the vinifera parent could be French Colombard). It is a medium vigor vine producing small clusters of small blue grapes. They ripen early to a brix of 22-24 degrees with fairly low acidity for a red grape. The growth habit is trailing with thin, riparia shoots but the leaves look like vinifera. I received this vine with some table varieties and thought that it would turn out to be a labrusca tasting table grape. It turned out to be more of a wine variety. I only have one vine of this variety but from what I've seen of it, I'm very impressed. I think it might have promise for a regional wine variety and am planting more this next year to evaluate it further. Unfortunately, this variety has not shown the winter hardiness of Valiant. It has never died back to the ground but suffers in winters with wide temperature swings. At lower elevations it hasn't had this problem.





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    Feature Variety

    Variety: Seyval

    Seyval, a French hybrid that has become a standard for white wines.

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