How does reliance seedless grape taste. Is this variety dieease restiant.
They are my favorite of the 5 varieties I grow. Absolutely wonderful tasting. They are also quite a bit different from all my others (Mars, Niagra, catawba, concord, ? (I’m forgetting one)) in terms of taste. All my others, with possible exception of the green Niagras, taste pretty similar but reliance are quite different. More like a typical store bought grape than the slip-skin home grown ones. Reliance, though, is much better than store bought or slip skins. This is a WONDERFUL tasting grape that I LOVE. That is the good news.
The bad news is that Reliance is also by far the most difficult grape to grow for me. The vines are never as lush or healthy, the plants are far more prone to various health problems, and they tend to to grow slower and stay a bit smaller than other vines. Also, for whatever reason, it is extremely clear that insects prefer the leaves on Reliance FAR more than any of my other plants. I have to spray them twice as often to get the same protection that my other grape vine leaves get. Last but not least, and this is going to sound a little hard to believe, but year after year, it is always the same story: Birds prefer reliance grapes 10 to 1 over all my other grapes!!! I can’t explain this, but it is absolutely true and is true to such a degree that you really need to consider it when deciding to grow Reliance. You will HAVE to net them or have some kind of protection. I know this sounds a bit far fetched (why would a bird care about taste or even distinguish one from another, etc) but I’ve certainly seen it consistently happen for years. All this being the case, I still enjoy reliance and still grow it. So for me its worth the extra work and effort.for the great tasting grapes. However, I only have a small number of reliance vines. Were it not for all the difficulties…if they were comparable to other varieties in terms of difficulty to grow, I’d have replaced all my vines with Reliance because they taste much better. But because of the aforementioned difficulties, I only have a few.
Please understand that I am far from a grape growing expert-far from it. I am only telling you what my own personal experience is with Reliance vs other grapes I grow. They taste much better but are much harder to bring to fruition. I have no idea if other growers have similar experiences and challenges and taste preferences, and I look forward to hearing from others who read your post topic and give their own response. I live in middle Tennessee, so perhaps in other locations Reliance would have none of the difficulties that I do? Anyway, hopefully I’ve helped you a little bit in at least telling you my own experience with Reliance vs my other grapes. Good luck.
3 Likes