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Grow Tomatoes Review: Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato

July 27th, 2009 | Author: Dot

Ripe Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato in DoT's Hand 14 July 2009

DoT’s Thot: What’s in a name? It appears that this tomato was well-named. I bought it because Vintage Wine Beefsteak had a nice ring to it; my friends can remember this tomato by name, and it performed well.

Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato Has Performed Well in 2009

This tomato has produced many fruits and yields very pretty, truly striped tomatoes. When I gave some tomatoes away, I had very positive feedback.

I did have to net the tomatoes in July, because the birds realized what a great find the tomato rows were. I also had some critter attacks on ripening fruit — we have lots of trees in our city and I have seen an occasional coyote, a raccoon, and several opossums. My neighbor’s dog had a run-in with a skunk, though I never saw it; I did smell it. Of course, we battle gophers and an occasional ground squirrel.

Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato Plant with Green Tomatoes - 13 June 2009

Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato Ripening on the Vine 25 June 2009

Description of Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato Plant

This is a potato leaf indeterminate (I) tomatoplant recently introduced. It is a bicolor tomato which was listed as 85 days to maturity. It is considered somewhat rare, because of the unique striping of the fruit. Bought in early March, the plants (only variety that got duplicated) were in the ground no more than 2 weeks later. By mid-June there were many green tomatoes on the plants. By the end of June we were eating ripe tomatoes.

The plants produced an abundance of succulent tomatoes throughout July. So far, we have harvested at least 25 pounds of Vintage Wine heirloom tomatoes.

Clusters of Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomatoes 25 July 2009

Review Commnents about Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato

This has been one of the most popular tomatoes that I have given other people. My dentist told me that of all the tomatoes I gave her, she liked the Vintage Wine Beefsteak tomato best. This heirloom tomato was “really tasty, really sweet, deep red, almost burgundy”. Another comment from a friend of mine was, “…stripes really stand out; most tomatoes are streaked; this one is really striped.

I did note that the color is pink with gold stripes (real stripes – not just streaks) and the pink deepens to a very nice color. The interior also deepens as it ripens. When I first sliced up the tomatoes, I was a bit hasty and had picked the tomatoes before they were absolutely vine-ripe. The color was not as deep.

Compare the last two pictures to get a sense of how deeply colored the fully ripe tomatoes become; this was one of my lessons learned in 2009. I did like the acidity, even when not as ripe, so I will look for this tomato again next year. I appreciate its value as a home-grown garden gift to others. Hence, Vintage Wine Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato wins a spot in the tomato row.

Aloha, DoT