My name is Konstantin Gulidin. I am a Russian amateur viticulturist and the developer of the website you are currently visiting.
I have lived my entire life in Pyatigorsk, Stavropol Krai, located in the foothills of the Caucasus on the southern borders of our country. Our region features a temperate climate with a fairly long frost-free period by Russian standards, lasting 180–200 days. This has allowed me to successfully cultivate most of the grape varieties that caught my interest.
My land resources are limited: I can properly accommodate no more than 35–40 grape varieties on my plot, which has always been a limiting factor for the scale of my plans. On the other hand, because of this, viticulture never turned into a heavy, routine chore for me; instead, it remained a beloved hobby and a subject of deep study for over 20 years.
I have little interest in alcohol, which is why I grew table grape varieties exclusively. Over the years, about 60 varieties — and perhaps even more, as I did not keep strict records — passed through my hands and trellises. My interest lay not only in harvesting grapes but also in constant experimentation with vine pruning and training systems, the use of plant hormones, and studying vine behavior under various pest and disease protection programs.
In parallel with viticulture, another interest emerged in my life — web development. In this field, I am also an amateur and self-taught rather than a professional. Nevertheless, I have built several successful web projects over the years, including ones dedicated to viticulture. The first was my personal blog, VINEDRESSER, followed later by the VINEYARD project. The latter went through several transformations: evolving from an educational resource for beginners into a full-fledged forum for grape growers, and then into a broad-profile reference guide for viticulturists and gardeners. And now, I have decided to restore the direct and only proper connection between the VINEYARD.SU domain and the grapevine.
For personal reasons, I no longer grow grapes on the land, but the accumulated knowledge and experience remain with me. Now, I want to create something far greater than just a website with educational articles for beginners.
The International Ampelographic Encyclopedia — this is my new global milestone. I want to build an authoritative resource that will be used by grape growers worldwide, from passionate amateurs to industry professionals. Perhaps it will become a digital monument to my past passion, to which I dedicated so many years.
How the VINEYARD Ampelographic Encyclopedia Is Built
From the very beginning, I decided that a viticultural project aiming for an international scale must be created exclusively on the basis of academic data. All the information you find here is drawn from trustworthy sources. These include state variety registers, patent descriptions, scientific articles and reports, as well as fundamental publications such as the monumental seven-volume «Ampélographie. Traité général de viticulture» (1901–1910) by Viala and Vermorel, the ten-volume «Ampelography of the USSR» published since 1946, Hermann Goethe's «Handbuch der Ampelographie» of 1878, and other specialized works. In rare cases where a grape variety is not described in academic literature or the description is extremely scarce — which often happens with varieties from amateur breeding — I will refer to "aggregated data from amateur research," which is nevertheless verified for consistency among different researchers. The data source is indicated in every description on the website, allowing anyone to perform a comparative verification.
The information at my disposal is processed to fit the uniform description format adopted by the VINEYARD Encyclopedia. However, one of the most crucial tasks is to preserve the authenticity of data obtained from historical sources. Therefore, if the original text states that "the variety shows the best results when grown on stakes," that is exactly the phrasing you will see here. I will not alter it to favor modern viticulture methods; instead, I will simply add a note: "this recommendation is relevant for the late 19th century." You will likely encounter many such clarifications throughout the project.
Data on the same grape variety obtained from different sources may be combined. If the findings differ fundamentally, a corresponding note will be made. I believe this is the correct approach since a description made in Italy, for instance, cannot inherently contain accurate data on the winter hardiness of the vine. At the same time, studying the exact same variety under the conditions of Russian research institutes allows us to provide comprehensive information regarding its resistance to winter conditions. Thus, combining data from various sources will make the variety descriptions on VINEYARD more complete and valuable. To populate the Encyclopedia, data from commercial or amateur resources, including forums, is strictly avoided, as it can be biased or presented incorrectly. The only exceptions are specialized photographic and video materials.
For describing grape varieties, we use the methodology and terminology proposed by Mikhail Anatolyevich Lazarevsky. I deliberately do not use the OIV descriptor system, as I am convinced that abandoning human-readable language in favor of digital codes does not constitute scientific progress. The VINEYARD Ampelographic Encyclopedia is created for people, so it will be written in plain human language. You will not need a decoder to read a grape variety description.
In some cases, you may notice phrasing errors or less-than-perfect wording, especially in the articles. I kindly ask you not to judge too harshly: unfortunately, I cannot completely eliminate such flaws, as I am not a native speaker of all languages myself. While modern AI models handle translation quite well, they still occasionally make phraseological and stylistic slips.
I would be sincerely glad if you support this project with your contribution: point out potential errors, or send rare text materials about grapes or photos that I can publish on the website. In addition to encyclopedic descriptions of varieties and rootstocks, I aim to gather a massive image database that will help identify grapes by their morphological traits. Therefore, high-quality photographs of leaves, shoot tips, and clusters — which are currently lacking in the variety descriptions — are highly valuable for the project.
You can contact me directly via email: gk79@ya.ru