A New Twist to Backyard Gardening
A Vineyard of Your Own

Are you a wine lover who dreams of walking through your own vineyard, picturing the harvest and the fine wines it will bring?

You may not have to wait until after you retire or spend your life savings on an investment in the world's finest grapes growing regions. In these areas, where grape vines grow best and pay the most for their fruits, you'll find little backyard plots converted to mini vinyards. Each of these add their grapes to a co-op or commune that makes the grapes into wine and provides the owners with a growers' discount on the finished product.

What is changing in the grape industry and in the world of wine is the idea that grapes can only be grown in certain regions. True, the Champagne region of France produces grapes that make outstanding sparkling wines, but have you tasted any of the bubbly from California, Australia, New York State and even England?

While Bordeaux may be the red wine capital of the world, the competition for the title has just opened to undreamed of regions. There is no state in the United States and no province in Canada that does not support a winery or two...or 200. Even the desert state of Arizona has some prime grape growing areas.

Australian wines have been discovered by the world and South American wines are not far behind. The idea that grapes have to be grown in certain areas in Europe to be used to make good wine is fading fast.

Using this knowledge, some regular folks have gotten into the growing end of drinking wines. The problem is that grape growing is very hard work. It is, after all, farming. It can also be very expensive. According to an article in Forbes Magazine. "To buy a winery in Napa will run to $13 million or so. One in an emerging wine area such as New York's Long Island will still be millions. In Ohio and Missouri you can even get a tax break to start a vineyard."

But you don't have to buy a winery or plant acres of grape vines. The small plots in backyards in Europe have inspired many would be grape growers. The same article in Forbes says that since 1999 one firm, "Post & Trellis, has planted 100 vineyards ranging in size from an eighth of an acre to 3 acres in the area between San Francisco and Silicon Valley."

Backyard grape growers in countries outside of Europe have been around for decades. Barb Vetter and her husband Jim have a vineyard in their Portola Valley, California backyard. Members of a group in California, Home Winemakers and Grape Growers, not only grow backyard grapes, they've formed their own group to make it into wine.

David Stare of Dry Creek Winery got his start in a backyard in Maryland. "I got to know a Baltimore Sun editor who owned a small winery and vineyard. I would go to his place on Saturday afternoons and taste wines out of barrels. Soon I was hooked on the subject, and I ended up planting 40 grapevines in my backyard," he says.

What do you need to grow your own? A bit of land and inspiration. Get the land ready in the fall for planting in the spring. Be prepared for a crash course in viticulture to find out which grapes to plant and how to care for them. You'll probably find plenty of help from neighbors who have been quiet about their own backyard vineyards. Who knows, in a few years you may be sipping a fine wine that was grown in your own backyard.