Foxy Vixen Seedling Harvest

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I met up with Cliff around 1:30 to head over to the annex vineyard at the SBC community garden that’s on campus out near the pottery barn, where he had a few rows of grapes; mostly wild foxy vixen seedlings that he’d planted there in ’03 and left to grow with little monitoring and no pesticides. The beetles had gotten to the leaves on the one type of vine (either primarily the cordifolia or labrusca, I can’t remember), but they were posted high enough to be out of reach of the deer, and had fared remarkably well. We harvested a number of the foxy vixen seedlings (grown from a vine he had found across 29), which were smaller and a bit sour, but actually quite tasty—not nearly as bad tasting and seedy as some of the other wild grapes that were growing. Cliff said I might be able to breed them next spring, since I’m on campus and can more easily watch them grow. After flagging the vines, we put the grapes in their respectively labelled plastic baggies to take back with us. Cliff said he was going to use them in making Vixen Noir and Vixen Blanc wine grapes.

I think the idea of Sweet Briar having its own vineyard (like we used to have an orchard and dairy barn) to produce a little income for the school is a marvellous idea, one the alum are sure to approve of so long as we could fund the initial start-up of the project. I mean we certainly have the acreage. And now that Cliff’s wine appreciation course has been approved for next semester, we’re on the right track! (All SBC students 21 and older should join by the way.)