Vintage Wine Tomato Review

Vintage Wine in the catalog on the old forum. Seeds from V.D. Popenko. This variety is a massive yielder 🍅. The fruits are just ridiculously beautiful, firm, and look like painted little apples. The taste, I’d say, is mediocre, a bit bland. Resistant to cracking. For maturity, it was early-mid season for me out in the open ground. I’m gonna keep planting it just for the looks. Because of how dense they are, I think they’d be perfect for pickling/canning.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Drosera

Weight check 😉:

Well, for me this year it turned out to be my absolute worst-yielding variety. Grew 2 bushes, one in the greenhouse, one outside. Same result on both, very few fruits, they are small, striped, and not a single one has turned red yet.

Wow! For me it was the exact opposite, one of my best yielders 🍅, grew 1 bush in the open dirt. Even with our awful weather this year (half the summer was just cold and rain), it gave a good crop.

I just picked a fruit that fully ripened on the vine the other day. Deeeelicious 😋, sweet with a little tartness and a hint of saltiness. It’s like night and day compared to the ones ripened indoors. I kept thinking about what the colors of these tomatoes reminded me of, and it finally hit me: Khokhloma (traditional Russian red and gold folk painting).

Edited September 6, 2014 by Svetlyachok-plyus

Found a picture of the bush from early July:

Gonna give it a try this year)

🙂 The seeds were expired, from a store-bought packet, Renata shared them. Grew into a real beauty!

Nadin wrote:
🙂 The seeds were expired, from a store-bought packet, Renata shared them. Grew into a real beauty!

But is it a tasty beauty 😋😋😋 or not? 🤠

Edited January 23, 2015 by Drosera

My Vintage Wine originally came from Popenko too. Didn’t really impress me last year, but I liked it this year, despite the weather.

Pani Tomat wrote:
But is it a tasty beauty 😋😋😋 or not? 🤠

🙂 Plant it and you’ll find out 😉! It’s got a normal, solid tomato flavor.

Nadin wrote:
🙂 Plant it and you’ll find out 😉! It’s got a normal, solid tomato flavor.

Almost all the striped varieties in 2014 disappointed me on taste 😞. And I dreamed of collecting them all, Vintage Wine included. 🤠

Pani Tomat wrote:
But is it a tasty beauty 😋😋😋 or not? 🤠

Flavor is just so-so, but it’s productive and quite pretty.

P.S. Irina, huge favor to ask: please remove photos from quotes.

Found my photos of Vintage Wine (I remembered posting them in some thread, turned out it was in the “striped tomatoes”). Moving them here

Please tell me, what is its height and ripening time? Trying to figure out where to plant it – out in the open dirt or in the greenhouse.

Marina Kh wrote:
Please tell me, what is its height and ripening time? Trying to figure out where to plant it – out in the open dirt or in the greenhouse.

Marina, it falls closer to mid-season. Mine was no taller than 3 feet (1 meter) outside 🙂. So you can definitely stick it out in the open ground 😉.

Thanks! Glad to hear it can go outside, that frees up another spot in the greenhouse 🙂.

Bummer that it’s mid-season, but I gotta try it anyway. Such a pretty mater!

As of today, this is my scrawniest bush, really short and looks a bit flimsy. Potato Leaf (PL) foliage. But it already has five trusses on two stems. The first truss set fruit really well, despite the cold and dampness in the greenhouse. I can’t even vent the place, it’s unbelievably cold here, only 42-55°F (+6 to +13°C) during the day.

One of the few varieties that is actually setting fruit in this kind of weather.

For me this year, it was the highest yielder and most resilient plant. We had blazing heat all summer. Practically all plants dropped their first blossoms, except Vintage Wine. Consequently, it ripened among the first. And it suffered the least from sunscald. I liked the taste, but the skin is a bit thick. But the color… It’s just a total stunner! And when you cut it open, it’s blood-red! Definitely planting it again next year!

Grew into a real beauty, looks like a little apple. Resilient, productive, and reliable. But in my opinion, the flavor is mediocre. Not sure I’ll want to plant it again. I just love really tasty tomatoes above all else. Here it is sitting among the black Oxhearts. And here’s what the trusses looked like growing.

Turned out to be arguably the most beautiful of all my tomatoes, but the taste didn’t impress me. Seeds were from Alexei Mikhailov.

Can someone help me figure out this mix-up? Planted seeds last year, the leaf was Potato type, saved my own seeds. Planted them this year, and the seedlings are coming up with standard tomato leaf, what kind of tomatoes am I going to get? That’s the question I have.

IL1965 wrote:
…the leaf was Potato type, saved my own seeds. Planted them this year, and the seedlings are coming up with standard tomato leaf, what kind of tomatoes am I going to get.

The fruit should be the same. But they might differ just a tiny bit. Honestly, it’s not all that uncommon, it turns out, when a tomato plant’s leaf type changes back and forth. Janet’s Jewel, Fée de Nuit, and now Vintage Wine acting up.

IL1965 wrote:
Can someone help me figure out this mix-up, planted seeds last year, the leaf was Potato type, saved my own seeds. Planted them this year, and the seedlings are coming up with standard tomato leaf, what kind of tomatoes am I going to get. That’s the question I have?

The potato leaf type is determined by a recessive ‘c’ gene.

Recessive genes only show up in a homozygote.

The genotype of a plant with a potato leaf is c-/c- (there might be other alleles for this gene, but they are also recessive)

There shouldn’t be any segregation upon self-pollination.

If I’m wrong – correct me.

Why did plants with a regular leaf appear – did seeds get mixed up, was there cross-pollination, something else?

is it early or late?

Closer to early, definitely not late.

Drosera wrote:
Closer to early, definitely not late.

awesome, thanks, that means – I’ll plant it 🎉

Drosera wrote:
…Why did plants with a regular leaf appear – did seeds get mixed up, was there cross-pollination, something else?

Cross-pollination is possible, they were in the same greenhouse with Carbon? But man, I really want pretty striped tomatoes.

So what to do to avoid cross-pollination when saving your own seeds.

Pollinate it manually at the very beginning when the blossom opens and at dawn, while the bees are sleeping. And put a cap on it. Are you going to do that? 😂

Well, practically the probability of getting purebred seeds increases if you regularly shake the flower trusses in the morning. Then self-pollination occurs.

Grew one bush of VW this year. Marina Kh shared the seeds. Thanks to her! ❤️

Very productive and beautiful little tomato 🙂 Literally painted.

But the taste didn’t impress me-maybe because of our rotten summer it didn’t gain a drop of sweetness 😞

Tatiiyasha wrote:
Grew one bush of VW this year. Marina Kh shared the seeds. Thanks to her! ❤️Very productive and beautiful little tomato 🙂Literally painted.But the taste didn’t impress me-maybe because of our rotten summer it didn’t gain a drop of sweetness 😞

For me this variety also turned out bland to the taste, even though neighbors of other varieties were tasty. But for the looks, it’s just a feast for the eyes.

Amazing variety, ripened on the entire bush at the same time

Oksana-pepper wrote:
Amazing variety, ripened on the entire bush at the same time

Oksana, why does yours not look striped at all?….and it’s supposed to be stripeeeeeey!… I have an off-type black one growing too… 😂😂😂

Lvovna wrote:
Oksana, why does yours not look striped at all?….and it’s supposed to be stripeeeeeey!… I have an off-type black one growing too… 😂😂😂

Anna, the photo was taken in the evening, it’s striped

A beauty, unconditionally. The taste is an acquired thing.