I just needed feedback and suggestions. I purchased the farm and didnt give much thought to the grapes which I know is my deal but getting feedback from horse people with experience with the grapes has been great. Thanks for the feedback. The location is perfect for me and my horses. ALL the feedback has been great!
About 20 years ago, DH decided it would be fun to plant some grapes. We live in a low, flat part of the valley where cold collects, so an unsuitable area for French varietals. After several years we planted more cold-hardy types, but the wine was pretty mediocre. The vines require pruning every year to keep producing; pruning is quite time consuming and very hard on old wrists! Picking, crushing, the whole wine making process is very time consuming, and we only had 50 vines. We eventually decided to pull up the plants and take down the trellises. I canāt say we miss them much.
This made me laugh a little because my first job was picking grapes for a vineyard/small scale wine maker. These people found their labor pool in the local tween scene. I was one in a gang of 12-14 year olds working at per-lug (box) rates with a cash payout. It was actually possible to earn more than minimum wage if you stayed focused and didnāt eat too many of the delicious concord grapes! That job incidentally led to my first paid riding lesson teaching job, for the twin daughters of the vineyard manager, on my pony.
I agree with everyone that you should either lease them out so youāre hands-off, or rip them out.
This makes me laugh too. How long ago was that? Youād be hard pressed to get tweens out there today. If you can find any willing to stick with the job, OSHA will come knocking in very short order. Ya, I know we worked jobs like that āback in the day.ā But then Iām old enough to remember when minimum wage was $1.65/hr.
One of my DHās and my favorite stories about our now adult son involves the small scale vintner wannabe that lived across the street from us when our son was a tween. Neighbor hired our son to help in his vineyard. We just sat back and chuckled. Our DS was never one to help in our vegetable and fruit gardens but maybe the $$$ would be a motivator. A week or so later we were over at the neighbors sharing a drink and something on the grill. Neighbor mentioned that as DS worked with him picking up rocks and clearing ground for more vines, DS had confided āmanual labor isnāt really my thing.ā Boy did we share a big laugh! Today that 30 year old son is a rather successful engineer, loving his work and well suited to it. Still honest and occasionally outspoken too.
But I digressā¦
ā¦ and apologize for the hijack. Vineyard ownership will lead to some good stories though (and made even better over a bottle of wine).
I dunno @fjordmom our local strawberry producer hires teens every year and gets more than enough. They just have to be 12, and away they go. Itās a big producing organic farm on the island and supplies berries to national store retailers (and their own honesty stand and several local mom-n-pop stores/farm stands/storefronts and something they call a āpop-upā they advertise from Xa-Xp at X location to buy the berries and other produce), so I suspect they do it correctly.
To the OP, it depends on what YOU are planning. While I have built and am still building my ādream farm,ā I also have an eye toward resale because I eventually want to retire to a place with lower costs and way less liberals. I may like or not like something, but I donāt build anything that would be completely useless to another person who could be a potential buyer. I ran into a smallish boo-boo when I didnāt plan well, and my arena will be a scoosh closer to the house than I would have liked, so I am making it a little smaller but still well within a usable size for a personal ring or even a small boarding barnās ring, and am āover buildingā it now so it will be all-weather, even tho I myself am more of a fair-weather rider. This farm is essentially part of my investment plan for retirement.
Depending on where you live, hobby farms and/or grapes may or may not be a desireable thing. Around here, most hobby farms are pretty popular with their owners and with potential buyers (minus my neighbor who still hasnāt sold their farm because itās a minimum $100k over priced :lol:) and just about everyone I know has a small or large garden or even a commercially producing garden with day jobs, or has chickens with honesty egg stands or supplies eggs to the local farm stands, or their own. There are even people who commercially grow flowers for road side stands and people wait, discuss online, have favorites, etc, and itās a source of income (and work). I built a medium size garden with raised beds at no small cost (and this summer traded plants for plants and plants for eggs and have traded poop for eggs) because I know that I get some enjoyment and food out of it and also, it will be attractive to buyers. An acre sounds a little too much like hard work to me, buuuuuutā¦ to someone it might be a good point. But if you arenāt selling, then rip them out.
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Are you near a high density of COTHers? Maybe you should host a grape grooming / wine making party a couple times a year. BYO food and everyone gets a bottle of wine when itās all done. Or do an Airbnb āexperienceā and have your renters work the vineyard.
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We also had a small vineyard on our new property; unfortunately it was right where we needed to put the barn so we had it removed. We did however, send out an announcement to anyone that might want some well established grape vines. We had quite a few people show up and take vines. So if you are planning on taking it out let people know so some of the vines can be saved.
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I totally neglected my hardy grapes on the south face @2200 feet in northern Vermont and they went gangbusters most years. Eventually they overtook the arbor and the new owners tore it all down.
Also, if this is in California, it might be that the small vineyard was planted for tax purposes. I think that was A Thing a few years back-- an expensive-to-start ācropā was a nice tax shelter and/or helped people have their small farms get taxed as agricultural land.
Wine grapes tend not to be that self-sufficient.
And, using them for actually making wine is tricky because it depends so much on other factors (soil, sun, rain) that are either out of your control or require a lot of work.
Table grapes can be really easy; my dadās family farm had an even older property that has long since fallen down but the orchard is still there - itās at least 100 years old. The Concord grapes still grow greatā¦only problem is that they grew up trees that are 50+ feet tall now. So harvesting is nearly impossible.
While I not going to pretend to be an expert on the subject, I can tell you the wine grapes on the property where I live seem to be the plant equivalent of hard-keeping, suicidal Thoroughbreds. :lol:
Thatās part of the reason the vineyard where I live exists-- vineyards and wine making have become really popular in Maryland, but apparently itās super tough in this climate to harvest enough quality grapes to make decent wine. Itās definitely not like the other agricultural crops they grow here where you put 'em in the ground and mostly let them be. So our farm supplements grapes to all the wineries around here so they can still tout a ālocalā product. From the looks of the crop lately, itās going to be a bad year for wine in this area.
We have a neighbor who just recently sold his vineyard/winery: they started it to make wine many years ago, but the grapes and subsequent wine were too inconsistent in quality for the business model they wanted. So they switched to distilling their grapes into liquor (which wasnāt great, either, but more novel than the wine). Now the neighbor sold the vineyard and is brewing beer. I have never seen someone so happy to offload their property on to someone else.
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If you have dogs, I also know of a dog that lived on a vineyard and ate the grapes. He ended up spending a week in the ICU at the vet school in acute renal failure. Iām not sure how much kidney function he was left with in the end.
An acre isnāt enough to be commercially viable but if youāre in a wine growing region and close to other vines you might have a taker as a lease on it, in which case theyāll be adding it to the other vines they manage. Whether thatās worth it to you will depend on whether you needed that land for something else or not.
You would need to give your lessee access to the property with some frequency. Thereās pruning in the winter, frost protection in the spring, and harvest in the fall. Harvest is generally done at night. Other management will depend on your region - if pesticides are used, how much water they need, etc.
A well maintained vineyard is nice to look at and might improve your quality of life over having to maintain that area yourself. Only you can know.
You win the prize! That is actually a very accurate analogy.
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@believe, do you live in California?
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Be sure and check out, as mentioned above, whether there is a farmer or coop who will manage and harvest the grapes. That is something which is done here on small acreage in wine country near me.
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Find out how the vines and production affect your access to water and/or the rate you pay for water. If you have an agricultural exemption you may pay a much lower rate.
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Investigate the tax ramifications of owning the vines and harvesting the grapes. I am thinking of State and Federal income taxes but there might be some effect on your property taxes as well. I havenāt heard of that but I would ask.
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Evaluate the advantages of keeping the vines based on what the trend is in your area. Are properties developing more vines and is the area turning into a wine country? Is it already a wine area or is your farm an exception with an unusual crop? You might want to talk to a realtor if you are in wine country and get an opinion about the ramifications of keeping vines vs. more horse pasture.
Of course, a big factor in this decision will end up being how it will affect your life to keep the vines, and whether it becomes an unwelcome chore or whether it turns out to be minimal effort. If it were my farm, I would keep the vines for a season or two before making a decision. If nothing else, they are pretty.
Is there more useable acreage on the property for the horses?
Wine grapes can be made into the most delicious grape pie. Iām always on the lookout for wine grapes. The seeds become crunchy nuts of flavor!
