Vitis vinifera (Wine)

The wine (Vitis vinifera) is one species from the genus Vitis and the family Vitaceae. Today it is mainly in the Mediterranean area, Central Europe and Southwest Asia at home.

The wine is a climbing shrup with tendrils and can grow up to 33 to 67 feet tall. It has a deep, richly branched rhizome, and a woody stem with up to 5 feet in circumference. Their brown bark peels off in longitudinal strops. The red-brown to brownish-yellow colored branches are mostly barren and rarely covered by a woolly coat. They have fine grooves and small, punctate cortical pores. There are only 2 thin-skinned and light-brown bud scales present.

The round-to-heartshaped leaves are usually clarly 3-5-lobed and narrow indentations on the leaf stalk. They measure 2 to 6 inches in diameter, its base is heart-shaped and their lobes are coarely toothed and cover themselves even in part. The upper surface of leaves is barren, the underside of white woolen hair to almost tomentose. Usually the leaves is opposite a tendril. The length of the petiole is 1.6 to 4 inches.

The slightly fragant flowers are arranged in complex, dense panicles. The calyx is short and 5-lobed. The petals are about 0.2 inches long, yellow-green and fall off as the petals early. Flowering period is from June to August.

The fruits are spherical to elongated stained 6 to 20 mm long and dark blue. purple, green or yellow. Partically they are waxy. Its taste is sweet or sour. There are always 3 or 4 seeds so far. These are hard-shelled, pear-shaped and provided on one side with 2 longitudinal furrows or pits.

The wine is found in lowland forests in Europe, scattered in the plains and the hills. The soils are usually dry or moderately moist. The original range includes the Mediterrean region, Central France, the Southwestern Switzerland, the Alsace plain, the river basins of the Danube and the Neckar River and Southern Russia and Asia Minor.

Today it is also grown in the U.S.A., of all in California, in Southern Brazil (of all in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Cruz and Paraná), Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Southeastern Australia.

We also grow wine in our garden, we have one pergola with wine.

Ripen bunchs of grapes in our garden in December 2009.

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Updated by Joachim Jaeck on March 10th, 2010