Want to pick your own grapes directly from the vineyard?
No need to go to other towns or provinces as you can already do it here in Kalinga with the opening of Charlotte’s Haven grape farm.
The vineyard which is located at Elephant Hills in San Pedro, Rizal will be open for grape picking on the 3rd week of January 2024.
The start of the grape farm
Around 900-square-meter portion of Charlotte’s Haven was dedicated to grape farming in 2022 when its owner, Engineer Jo Ann Operio, and her husband decided to introduce a grape farm in Kalinga. To realize this dream, they reached out to a young farmer, Harvey Atas, who also had the same aspiration.
In an interview, Atas conveyed it was always his dream to grow varieties of grapes in Kalinga which is why he was willing when Operio offered their land for him to apply his knowledge on grape propagation.
“Isu nga very thankful nak kada manang [Operio] ta isuda iti nang-push kanyak nga ituloy ko ket idiay ko met nga in-grab diay opportunity tapnu matungpal met diay arapaap ko nga adda iti grape farm ditoy Kalinga,” he said.
Before his dream of growing grapes on a farm in Kalinga turned into reality, Atas, 24, a fresh graduate of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Biosystem Engineering, had a fair share of failure and frustrations.
He recalled that he started planting grapes in their backyard in Lacnog, Tabuk City in 2020, during the pandemic when he had more time due to the blended mode of learning at the time. Likewise, he needed something to distract himself and to cope with the stress and boredom caused by restricted movements.
Atas detailed he had to learn from the trial and error method as he faced struggles on his first try. He described that out of the 1,000 grape cuttings he first propagated, only 50 survived.
With persistence and dedication, he was able to discover some information on what it takes to propagate grapes which he later used to work on his undergraduate thesis.
Varieties of grapes at Charlotte’s Haven
Applying what he learned from grape farmers and owners and his research and experiments, he propagated at least 11 varieties of grapes at Charlotte’s Haven.
These include the Baikonur variety, Narc Black, Catawba, Black Ribier, Brazilian Hybrid, Preobrazhenie, Pervozvanny, Everest, Joy Seedless, Academic, and Jupiter.
Two of these varieties - Baikonur and Black Ribier could be picked on the 3rd week of January to February this year. The rest of the varieties will be available next picking season.
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