Last fall I made my annual wine from my grape harvest.
However 2013-2014's winter was brutal here, statewide there were reports of heavy dieback from the cold hardy grape varieties the University of Minnesota developed 20 years ago, since it was the coldest winter in 30 years. I lost a vine, and only one variety thrived(King of the North)
I had just a few pounds of grapes, not even
enough for a one gallon batch, but i added my aronia berry harvest to them and fermented the whole thing into a decent, not great 2014 wine.
As I had done the year before I dug a trench along a fenceline and spread the grape seed leftovers over a 5-10 foot area for grape propagation and
fence coverage.
Out of the thousand seeds or so I get a large percentage to germinate this way, with no real effort besides a few shovels of dirt to break up the weeds and a
bucket of collected pine needles for mulch.
I just checked on them yesterday and was very pleased to see the aronia seeds also sprouted in large numbers.
For those unfamiliar aronia is an astringent berry known sometimes as chokeberry, but i enjoy the flavor fresh. They have super high antioxident levels and can be added to lots of things, though the flavor is basically a bit tart with a pucker. They are disease free and very cold hardy(zone 2), and have beautiful fall color.
Anyway, I get wine and plants out of the process which I thought was cool and
should share.
I am attempting a Nanking cherry wine or mead this week and will use part of the seed harvest from those in the same way.
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