Skip to main content

Story: Viticulture

Grape plants

Grape plants

This 1849 botanical illustration depicts two fruiting varieties of grapes, showing their different leaf forms and colours at harvest time, and giving a description of the two varieties.

Using this item

University of Melbourne, Special Collections, Baillieu Library

Reference: Elizabeth Twining, Illustrations of the natural order of plants. London: Sampson Low, 1868, plate 37

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Maggy Wassilieff, Viticulture – Grape growing in New Zealand, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/18292/grape-plants (accessed 10 June 2026).

Story by Maggy Wassilieff, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

Elizabeth James
19 May 2012
We inherited an Albany Surprise vine which produced next to nothing for 2 or 3 years after our move. We built a pergola with a polycarbonate roof and paved the area with concrete pavers. The vine is now trained under the pergola and is producing great grapes. Last year I tried making half a bucket of grapes into wine following a recipe from "Aunt Daisy's Cookbook" - It was a lovely sweet dark red dessert wine. This year I have 2 buckets of about 5 litres each working away - should be ready for bottling in a week or so. I haven't added as much water or sugar this year - so it's not quite as sweet but still has a lovely flavour and colour. What I want to know is what type of wine is it?