Vitis vinifera
Habitat: It is not known in the wild, it thrives in wind-protected, frost-free locations.
Flower color: white
Flowering time: May-July
Harvest time: October-November (as soon as the leaves have fallen off.)
Growth: vine, approx. 7-10 meters high
Edible parts: fruits, leaves, seeds
Other uses: cosmetics, medicine, wine
Specimens on Son Selva: 1
Vinis vinifera
The grapevine is a shrub that climbs with shoots and, if left unpruned, develops the growth form of a liana. It can grow 10 to 20 meters high. The climbing plant is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world. Today, around 16,000 grape varieties are known.
Grapes need a warm and sunny location so that they ripen well. Grapevines do not have high demands on the soil, but it contributes to the aroma of the grapes and the wine produced from them.
Medical use
The skin and seeds of grapes contain oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs), which act as powerful antioxidants, among other things; the seeds can be processed into grape seed oil and grape seed flour.
Care
In spring, you should give your grapevine some compost, about two to three liters per square meter. Most other fertilizers are too rich in nitrogen and encourage the occurrence of leaf diseases. The other care measures are mainly limited to pruning (see below) and removing leaves that shade the grapes too much.
Pruning:
The greatest effort is required for training and pruning the grapevines. Grapes generally only form on the new shoots that grow from two-year-old wood. To ensure that as many grapes as possible can be harvested, the shoots are tied up on stakes with wires. If several shoots develop in the year of planting, the strongest one is left standing and tied to the support post. Regular tying is necessary to ensure that the trunk forms straight and to prevent breakage. All other shoots are removed. Anything that grows above the desired trunk height in the year of planting is cut back to two to three leaves in September.
The woody main shoot is cut off at trunk height about three centimeters above the last bud and tied to the support post. The spring shoots are cut back to the strongest, maximum five, after the Ice Saints (mid-May) and these are carefully pulled horizontally, vertically or in a fork shape along the trellis.
The pruning of grapevines is pretty complex. Hier findest du eine gute Anleitung dazu.
Our only old grapevine after its first "haircut".
Autochthonous vines on Mallorca
After the great phylloxera plague and the beginning of mass tourism, wine growing on Mallorca was reduced to almost nothing, before old traditions were revived in the 1990s - initially very hesitantly. Mallorcan original varieties had been forgotten or were not allowed to be used commercially. The tide only turned at the turn of the millennium, when the now dominant varieties Mantonegro and Callet (red wine) and the white Moll were re-established. Gorgollassa and Giró Ros followed in 2012, and in June 2016 the Escursac grape was also planted. Today these varieties can be sold under the label "Vi de la Terra Mallorca".
The autochthonous vines are adapted to the soil and climatic conditions of the island and can sometimes ripen into October. This makes it possible to reduce the sugar and alcohol content, which is otherwise very high due to the warm climate.
My personal favorite wine is the Callet variety:
It originated several centuries ago on the southeast coast of Mallorca, very close to our property. Callet means "black" in the Mallorcan dialect. For a long time, the grape variety was threatened with extinction. Today, thanks to its extensive cultivation, it is probably the best-known autochthonous red wine grape of the DOP "Pla i Llevant" (=plain and coast).
Traditionally produced Callet red wines are light in color, rustic, with moderate acidity and have a low alcohol content. From old vines, dark in color, strong and robust with individual character.
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