Black Hamburg Grapevine Plants

Vitis vinifera 'Black Hamburg' / Schiava Grossa / Trollinger Grapevine Plants

A delicious and reliable seeded black grape for eating fresh, juicing or making wine.

It can be kept in check with judicious pruning, so is suitable for small gardens or courtyards.

Browse our full range of soft fruit, or our climbing plants.

Features:

• Large deciduous healthy climber
• Bunches of black grapes in autumn
• Great for eating fresh and for wine
• Size: To 7m x 3m
• Suitable for growing outdoors in the South
• Will need support

Growing 'Black Hamburg' Grapevines

Full sun is essential for the best crops. The microclimate beside a warm, sunny wall is ideal. When grown outside in the warmer parts of the South, it still needs a good summer to crop well; in the rest of the country and to be on the safe side, it should be grown in a greenhouse; you can plant it with the roots outside.

Fertile, well drained but moist soil during the growing season, alkaline to neutral.

The vine will need a framework, trellis or wire support, quickly growing to fill a space 8m x 2.5m. It can be pruned in mid winter to create a framework and again in mid-summer if required.

In Your Garden Design

There's something rather wonderful about sitting under the shade of a vine, which takes us back to Roman times and evocations of lazy, hazy Mediterranean days. Train it over a pergola on the terrace and add large pots of grasses, cordylines, salvia (such as caradonna and joy) and dahlia to create a special space.

Did You Know?

The Great Vine, a 'Black Hamburg' that grows in a glasshouse at Hampton Court Palace, is the largest vine in the world and can produce more than 300kg of grapes in a year, which are then sold to visitors in September. It was planted by Capability Brown in 1768, when he was in charge of the gardens there, and came from a cutting from a well-established vine at Valentine's Mansion in Essex. The variety is known in its native Germany as 'Trollinger' and Italians call it 'Schiava Grossa'; it is still grown on a large scale for producing mainly red wine in both countries.

How to plant Vitis vinifera Black Hamburg:

Plant in a deep hole, backfilled with a humus rich compost, to which has been added a handful of bonemeal and some Root Grow, just planting to the pot level.

Firm and water in well and keep watering regularly while the plant matures. It will need some wires or a trellis as support.

Look out for: Resistant to Phylloxera and will cause very few problems. The foliage and sap are a slight irritant.