This video shows all the phases of breeding… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Pranxd9fw
I’d be interested in an early ripe Muscat for wine. I don’t have Acerifolia, but I do have
ES 4-23-60 x (Rupestris/Cordifolia xCaribaea)
A good female hybrid. High brick.
Yours is an interesting hybrid (with a very rich pedegree 
…) and this plant has only female flowers?
About my muscats: the earliest i’ve got is Muscat Blue that in 9A zone ripens some days after 20th August, then I’ve got Poloskei Muskotaly that, always talking about 9A Zone, ripens between 10 th and 20 th of September, otherwise White muscat and Alexandria muscat ripen between 20th and 30 th of Sempember. Unfortunately for this season these plants have been pruned for production before I discovered this forum, and the spare cuttings have been taken away. If you agree we can make this trade in November and in this time you can read about these four varieties and choose which you want. Best for flavors are Muscat of a Alexandria and White Frontignan Muscat, but I think you have to calculate when these two varieties could ripen in the place where you live… Consider that you will have to graft them against filloxera and treat them against powdery mildew and downy mildew (except Muscat blue and Poloskey Muscotaly which resist to both).
I gave a look at Seatle climate parameters: if following are right I think you can grow white muscat or alexandria muscat (unless you neew that it flowers in a previous period…)
1 Like
While we do have a long frost free growing season;
Our accumulated heat units are low
Under 2,000 growing degree days/50f.
Hence
Concord is about the very latest grape that can usually get ripe.
Muscat of Alexandria is too late
As for Muscat Canelli
It might make it
but super sensitive to mildew and botrytis
Ditto for the Orange Muscat.
But
If I could get seeds of a few Early ripe
Muscat’s
I’d like to try it.
Pearl de Caaba is almost too early
even here.
I think Morio Muscat would be good.
1 Like
Sorry I don’t have any Morio Muscat… but: the Canelli biotype that I would send you (Frontignano), has never had an infection here, (while another biotype of the same variety I have is always ill…). Consider that I write you from an alluvial plain in a sub-continental area that was once a swamp: the levels of fog and humidity are very high… (You can’t immagine how hard is living here for a sicilian…) . Although Moscato di Alessandria always has some problems (here), if I were you I would take both cuttings from Canelli (Frontignano) and of Alexandria (even if this last will not enjoy perfect health, the pollen will do its duty …). I could send you 2 cuttings from Canelli, 2 cuttings from Alessandria and about twenty seeds from Muscat Bleu and Poloskei Muskotaly. So, yes, I can send you the seeds, it’s not a problem, but I’d preferably trade cuttings for cuttings (in this case of your hybrid). Can it be good for you?
P.S. You live in beautyful place!
1 Like
USDA is fussy about cuttings, but seeds are usually OK.
Regulators.
What will the postage cost you?
0,4 Kg in a box of 15 cm X 15 cm x 40cm is 28 euros… I didn’t know there is a limits for cuttings shipping… I supposed that there were customs duties for goods, I mean, for products, but this is a present… Moreover, I suppose that all the possible phytopathologies that the new and the old world could trade, have already been traded at the end of 19 th century (or maybe even before and it was a loss for Europe ) . If you think it’s not possible with cuttings we can try with seeds. Consider that in theory for crossing you should be very sure of the parent, while having not genetic segregation (this is for all grapes) you will never know what a seed will give…
Ok I read about the rules… If you want we’ll do it with seeds. The only problem is for muscat of Alexandria seeds (I use almost all clusters for my crossings) so that cuttings were more useful for you and less precious than seeds for me. If you don’t know why I’m so passionate about muscat of Alexandria next time you go to an Italian reastaurant or bar, take a “zibibbo” after an almonds cake
Write me when you want about your chioces for seeds…
Believe me
I wish I could get cuttings
But it’s a major bureaucracy to navigate.
Muscat is only now
in the last few years
Becoming popular in America.
I don’t want to rain on your parade. But i think it’s not that good of an idea to send cuttings overseas. Lots of diseases that currently are in our fruit growing nightmares, are there because of it.
The rules are usualy there for a reason. I think it is best to keep trades local. Or whitin continent. Or if it is inposible to get local. You should probably go trough phyto quarantine. But that will cost $$.
Only trading seeds seems like a good compromise. But i would also urge to clean the seeds well before sending. And checking rules and advise.
1 Like
I totally agree…
Seeds
With a few exceptions
Like Prunus
Are generally allowed.
Nothing is totally “safe”
but inertia.
1 Like
About long lost grapes
I was reading this in May about a man looking for wild types in Israel to vint wine.
(a second link came up while looking so I will post that as well
"quote from Smithsonian "
hen the Israeli winemaker Eran Raz decided to start his own vineyard, he didn’t look to the established wine regions in the country’s verdant hills. Instead, he was one of a small, intrepid group of vintners who acquired patches of barren desert in the Negev Desert—a dusty no-man’s land in Israel’s south, about 15 miles from the Egyptian border to the west and the Jordanian border to the east. Here, rainfall averages 10 or 11 inches each year and temperatures frequently hover near 100 degrees. “They say grapes need to suffer to make good wine,” says Raz. “Here that is no problem.”
(other Link)
(cannot finish exactly what I was trying to say busy but*(EDIT)
(But what I write below has something to with a remark LUCA (i Agree with)
made about human selection you mentioned (I quote LUCA )
“(Another problem is that ages of selection by mankind have depleted genetic diversity)”
On this second link I also do agree with the statements on the Smithsonian even if some of the grapes were identical 900 year ago (sav Blanc .) who knows if the wine tasted the same maybe different vineyard practices could of changed the flavor , and the popularity of some grapes where now they may become extinct , because of cultural changes.
(or marketing practices
where they may be used only locally,(or blending)
and not available in the market place )
(for instance )
I do think some grapes are looked down on but that is because they are over bearing producing more grapes for cheap wine when If they are thinned the wine would be better
I see it wrote all the time grape looks to be falling out of favor , but hey look some producers are producing great wine from these grapes
Muscadine grown in California won a Award in California
Probably a good place for Port wine and raisins.
In Europe modern enology has brought so many changes to the ancient vinification that the wine is surely different than 900 years ago. But we can imagine that even if they would vinify in the same way of the ancient romans, taste and flavor could be different (according to bud mutations and weather/drought changes). Recent ideas on how to rich genetic eritage of vitis vinifera sativa is starting crossing it (again) with vitis vinifera silvestris (this could be important because selection of new vines is often based on leveling flavors and tastes for the mass trade). I have some ancient vines (clones) one of the rarest is mentioned in the bible and produces bunches of 80 cm / 1 m. Knowing if it’s exactly the same written in that source is very difficult, but probably most of its genetic eritage reaches the ancient times. Actually one of the most drought tolerant vitis vinifera in europe is a Cypriot vine… In the pic the “promised land vine”.
2 Likes
The biggest grape clusters that I ever grew were on a Trebbiano vine.
They averaged about 11 inches.
The grape barely ripened locally
but
due to its disease resistant character
It could handle the wet fall weather.
Trebbiano here is largely ripened everywhere (we have about 7 different biotipes). It’s very resistant to downy mildew and to rot, but it’s not so tolerant to powdery mildew. I have to say that we are still talking about full vinifera vines that, anyhow, all need treatments for powdery mildew and downy mildew. Moreover trebbiano makes a very good wine but not one of the best. In the last years, using traditional crossings,(not transgenetic or cisgenetic techniques) they selected some vines with one ore two genes for the best resistance to diseases; you can find info about them right here: Nuovi vitigni resistenti alle malattie - Il Gusto del vino - Winetaste (these don’t need treatments or just one per season). A part of my crosses goes to this direction (but just for fun, I don’t have a laboratory to test for disease resistance genes). If you want a complete overview of the vines present in Italy (full vinifera genes) you can visit our national register where there are 545 wine varieties and 182 table varieties (or for dual use). The most aromatic are probably gewurztraminer, muller thurgau, and the different varieties of Muscat. The register can be found here: Registro Nazionale delle Varietà di Vite
Many varieties are still not present in the register: when I go around on vacation in my old-fashioned Sicily, which has always been located in the center of the Mediterranean, I always find some very old vine which even the owners do not know the name!
1 Like
P.S. An interesting aroma profile is also present in “Malvasia aromatica di candia”.
Trebbiano has yield and health
but weak on body.
Perhaps a cross to a flavorful French Hybrid is the answer?