Evangeline Grape

We've have the Evangeline growing for a few years now and this year we got to see how it performed.

This grape is a cross between Seigerrebe and St. Pepin.  It was created in Canada in Nova Scotia and it is as early as Seigerrebe, has the beautiful muscat flavouring but is cold tolerant to about -31c and has some disease resistance to both powdery mildew and downey mildew.

It is very  vigorous grower and put up huge canes this year on our vines.  The clusters are long and loose and the berries are the biggest of all the varieties we grow - about double the diameter of Marechal Foch.

This variety is the latest to break bud and to flower but among the earliest to ripen.  This year it flowered on July 3-4th and we picked them about 65 days later on September 8th at 18 brix and 2.9ph (see it pictured here on Sept 8th).  Had to take them before the wasps did.  We left a few bunches on the vines and the wasps didn't find them and on October 5th we recorded 21-22 brix and 3.3 ph.

This grape is fantastic, it is already growing (not commercially) in Nova Scotia and should be considered for marginal growing areas like Vancouver Island, south interior BC (West Kootenays) and (East Kootenays) especially where cold winters, short seasons, and late spring frosts are an issue.