Rio Grande is primarily a canner or saucer, hard to rate flavor on those. Here's Chuck Wyatt's description, back from the late 1990's:

Rio Grande -75 days- Determinate - Rugose leaf,- compact growth. Seemingly very disease resistant - A super canner that out produces anything I have seen. The fruit is considerably larger than Roma and the plant bears at least twice as much as Roma. Expect four quarts of canned tomatoes per plant if well grown.

Here's a pic, these were smaller than I normaly get, they were grown last year in 3 gallons of depleted soilmix without much iurrigation and with no fertilizing. (last year was a very bad year personally and no time to attend to the garden.)

{{gwi:1363039}}

I posted many favorite pics of salsa/paste/sauce type tomatoes in another thread, the thread still shows up but no longer moves to the top of the page when a reply is posted, let me try to find it...

Here's the other thread that won't bump...

Hope this helps.

Mark

Here is a link that might be useful: Paste Tomato Recommendations

I grew Rio Grande a few years ago and thought it was very good, it's a big paste.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Trudi, thanks for the picture. That's very helpful. Do you remember if Rio Grande had any serious problems with cracking or blossom end rot? We've had record-breaking rains here this year, and a bunch of my heirlooms are cracking horribly.

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. I must have missed the message regarding the update.

Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim's Garden

Hi Kim,

It's been several years since I grew Rio Grande and I don't remember any specific problems with it...but I do amend my soil usually twice a year so any problems from nutrient depletion are very rare here. How it performs in anyone else's soil depends upon their growing conditions.

T