Contrary to belief, vines can be grown successfully almost anywhere in the British Isles, although the chances of the grapes ripening (and being used for making wine!) are greater in the South.

Grapes aside, vines are beautiful ornamental plants, and are particularly suited to being grown in containers or up pergolas, walls and fences to provide dappled shade. They are deciduous climbing plants with twisted woody stems and large heart-shaped leaves.

Requirements: Vines need a well-drained sunny spot, sheltered from severe frosts. Ideally, vines should be planted with their roots in the shade and their heads in the sun.

Summer maintenance: Vines do need some support and can be trained in a range of different shapes — from cordons to guyots. Essentially the side branches need tying to some form of wires or support to form a framework and new young shoots should be tied in during the growing season.

Attaching the shoots to horizontal supports encourages more fruit production.

Winter pruning: Whole text books have been written about the winter pruning of vines but essentially it consists of retaining a few main stems and cutting back the other shoots. This pruning should be done in November or December after all the leaves have fallen off.

Cropping: Vines usually start to crop at approximately 3 years old. Depending on the number of bunches or grapes that develop, they may need thinning out to encourage the remaining grapes to grow and ripen.