Vitis piasezkii Seeds | Piasezki’s Grape

Loose bunches of small blue-black Piasezki grapes ripening among lobed leaves — Piasezki’s Grape (*Vitis piasezkii*): Vitaceae, northern and central China.

LATIN NAME: Vitis piasezkii

COMMON NAME: Piasezki’s Grape

Plant Profile

Piasezki’s grape is a wild Chinese vine of the northern valleys, climbing five to ten metres with large, shallowly lobed leaves and small, loose bunches of blue-black grapes that ripen late. It is a vigorous, deciduous climber with tendrils and a coarse, handsome foliage, and its fruit is small, seedy and sharply sweet, good for jelly and for eating in a cool climate where the European grape struggles. It is named for the nineteenth-century Russian collector who sent it west. The leaves turn a good crimson in autumn, which is reason enough to grow it on a wall. The bark shreds in long strips, as in the rest of the genus, and old vines are thick and sinewy.

Science & Biotechnology

Vitis piasezkii belongs to the East Asian wild grapes, a group that has become important in viticulture because it carries resistance to downy mildew, powdery mildew and phylloxera, and tolerates cold winters. Chinese breeders have used it and its relatives in crosses with V. vinifera to build disease resistance into table grapes, and its genome has been sequenced as part of the effort to map those traits. The species is dioecious in the wild, which means both sexes are needed for fruit, and its taxonomy has been confused with V. davidii. Populations in Shanxi and Shaanxi show useful variation in fruit colour and in ripening date. Its leaves are also used as a fodder in parts of northern China, where the vines are cut back after harvest.

Uses & Benefits

The grapes make a sharp, deeply coloured jelly and a decent table fruit in cool districts, and the leaves are used like vine leaves in the kitchen. Its greater value is as a breeding parent for disease resistance, and it is grown in germplasm collections for that reason. In the garden it is a strong, fast climber for a pergola or a wall, with good autumn colour, and it is one of the few vines that will crop where the season is too short for wine grapes. It is also a useful rootstock in cold districts, where the European vine is killed by winter. The vine is also a good ornamental for a cold greenhouse, where its late ripening is an advantage rather than a fault.

Growing from Seed

Give the seed eight to twelve weeks of cold at two to five degrees, then sow warm at twenty to twenty-five and expect germination within a month. The seedling is vigorous and may fruit in four to five years. Grow it in full sun on a strong support, in any well-drained soil, and prune in winter to a permanent framework. It is hardy and disease-resistant, but it needs a long warm autumn to ripen the fruit properly. If both sexes are grown, plant them within twenty metres so that the pollinators can find them. Do not bury the graft union if the vine was grafted.

Our Take

A wild Chinese grape with resistance in its genes and jelly in its future, and a vigorous climber for a cold wall. Grow two plants if you want fruit, and one if you want leaves.

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