Same Vines, Different Grapes: Boeger Winery Growing New Varietal From The Vine Up

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — It's part science, part magic — a Placerville winery has a way to make its vines grow a different kind of grape.

At Boeger Winery in Placerville, they are growing a new varietal of grapes not from the ground up, but rather, from the vine up in a method called grafting.

"It's a quicker way to expand acreage of a variety you might already have," Justin Boeger, the general manager of Boeger Winery, said. "We've taken an old vine of Primitivo that was growing and we cut the top off and we took buds from the Negroamaro vine and inserted them into the trunk of the vine here."

Negroamaro is a dark-skinned grape best known in southern Italy. Growing this varietal from scratch would take much longer, and time is money.

"It takes two years to get a crop when you graft, versus if we were to do the traditional method of rip out a vineyard that costs about three to four times as much and it takes three years to get a small crop," Boeger said.

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Boeger is using the resources already available on their family-owned vineyard, which has been in production for 47 years.

"These vineyards are only a few years old, so there's about 20-30 years left of growth in this stuff that's already been planted, so this way we take advantage of already having a vine that's ready to go," Boeger said.

In about two years, you'll be able to taste the first wine produced by these vines. But for now, customers can enjoy any other glass among the foothills when Boeger opens for reservations on June 24.

"It feels great to have some sense of normalcy with the precautions that we're taking," Boeger said. "It feels nice to be back."