Grape Variety for Eating

i would like to grow a vine in front of a SE facing wall. I intend to train it in front of the wall and up to the single story eves and along and over a door, Mediterranean style. The question is what would be a suitable variety? I don't intend to make wine, just want a desert variety. Oh and I'd like it to be disease and pest free.

Edit: I live in southern England.

 

Had my first bunch of "lakemont" this year, I planted the vine 18 months ago.
Flavour seems pretty good, the actual grapes were small though, probably a combination of my fault and the weather.
This spring it was loaded with flower bunches, but a frost in April killed all of them.
The one bunch formed from a secondary shoot that formed after the frost damage, it is in an exposed position on the allotment, a wall would be much better.

It has the advantage, which to me is a big one, of being seedless.
I also planted "flame" this last spring, also seedless, but yet to fruit for me.

 

I think most vines are pretty pest free in the UK, if you buy grafted plants they should also be free from root problems.
Biggest pest is blackbirds just before the fruit is ripe

 

Thanks @pete . Any other suggestions?

 

@Redwing @pete Interesting thread
I had a grapevine gifted me some years ago - it fruits well every year... the fruits are quite tart.. but in fairness, i don't think in spite of it being in a sunny well nourished and drained spot it ever has the long sunny days it would need to realise its full potential maybe? ........I would love to know what the variety is ...as the person who gifted me it .....was gifted theirs and was never told
And as you say the Blackbirds do luv um

 

Cornwall has a growing grape growing industry now producing high quality wines...a cornish producer beat the French in a recent wine tasting event

 

Hi,

We did what you are looking to do the other year using Boskoop Glory which Bob Flowerdue often recommends.

It grew well and developed quiet a few bunches of grapes in its second year, but the problem was the small wasps which came after the fruit, even when they were quiet small.

We tried covering the small bunches in fine curtain netting but they still got in; at first we thought they were just going after some fruits that had gone bad with the broken skin attracting them, but soon found that they would actually hack into good fruit.

As it was growing up the rear south facing wall with the pot on the patio, it became quiet hazardous and we got rather nervous that it my well attract some larger wasps/hornets which can be very menacing.

In the end we decided to take it down and gave it away, advising on the potential hazard

It might be better/safer if you can find a good location well away from the house.

Makes you wonder how the commercial growers do not have such problems with wasps ?

 

I shall book mark this thread so I don't miss any of the replies.

A dessert grape is what I am looking out for too (or, a dual purpose one)
The only thing I recall reading about dessert grapes is that they need to be grown in a greenhouse? Happy to be contradicted on this

 

The Great Vine at Hampton Court has been growing since the C18. That has the roots out of doors, and the fruit ripening under glass. It's a Black Hamburgh, a traditional dessert variety: The Great Vine - News | Capability Brown

I would imagine that you do need to grow under glass in this country to reliably obtain dessert grapes - my parents lived in Belgium for a while in the 1950s and I remember my mother describing buying beautiful dessert grapes from local horticulturalists, who grew them under glass and trimmed the bunches into shape with special scissors while they were growing. They were then labelled up and presented in boxes, like jewellery!

Later we had a holiday house in the Languedoc and there we had a Chasselas vine, a white grape and dual purpose (ie suitable both for eating and winemaking). Good flavour but they could rely on getting an awful lot of sun of course.

IMHO muscat varieties make the best dessert grapes. There is also something called a 'strawberry grape', which I have always wanted to try. It does apparently grow in the UK: Grape 'Strawberry Vine'

 

Good link there @Clare G

 

Just found this link about the Belgian hot house grape tradition, @"M" - that makes interesting reading too! Eating Belgium's Best Grapes in Hoeilaart, the Glass Village

 

There are a couple of grape varieties grown outdoors here. If they survive this climate, then they should be ok in the UK. One of the favourites is called "Vino Nordica." It can not only be eaten, but used for making jellies, and even grape juice.

 

I was sold as soon as I saw chooks but reading further: 18 Euros a Kilo? That could be some fun pin money to make

LURVE grape juice! The unfermented kind

 

Just to pick up on the Muscat type, to me that is what dessert grapes should actually taste like.
I've tried black hamburg in the past and found it sweet but pretty watery taste wise.
I did grow Muscat of alexandria some years ago before I took that greenhouse down, it ripen very late in the UK.

I've got a couple of pot grown plants of that on the go, intension is to get a couple of decent bunches or so off of each plant in the future, which I can bring in to ripen under cover in Oct.
Still has the problem of pips though.

 

I've just realised I have not thanked you people for the answers to this question. I'm closer to deciding and the current favourite is 'Lakemont' as recommended by Pete, followed by 'Strawberry'; only room for one. It'll be outside on a SE wall. I want to get the variety right. 'Boskoop Glory' seems to have mixed reviews. I'll only do this once so it's important to make the right choice. I'll order in the coming weeks or may ask for it as a Christmas pressie.