Articles

While there are a lot of urban myths surrounding winemaking, the one about racking under a full moon isn’t totally hogwash. Plus, what to do when your wine begins turning to vinegar, the specific gravity of a “dry” wine, and tips for making wonderful white wines.

Wine bottle capsules can take many forms. Reader Nicholas Cozzarelli takes us on a tour of the various kinds and how they are applied.

After dedicating as much time as we do making a batch of wine, the final step of putting a closure on the bottle can’t be overlooked. There are many options from natural, agglomerated, colmated, and synthetic corks, to screw caps, to name a few. Learn the pros of each option to ensure you find the right closure to fit your next batch of bottles.

Learn about the various factors that affect a home winemaker’s decision when choosing cork size and corkers.

Learn about your cork and closure options when it comes to bottling

If you’ve ever opened multiple bottles of wine made from the same batch and noticed they don’t taste identical, then you, too, have experienced bottle variability. Learn the potential causes and ways to alleviate variability among your bottles.

An introduction into bottling your first batch of wine.

If you’ve done everything right in the winery and your wine tastes great going into the bottle, you might scratch your head when you open that first bottle to find your wine muted and disjointed. Fear not — your wine is likely experiencing bottle shock.

In the final installment of our year-long series, the wines are bulk aged, oaked, and bottled.

From cleaners to corkers, there are many options on the market for the home winemaker for the home winemaker when it comes time to get your wine into the bottle.

 Country (non-grape) wines can be combined to create a blend that is better than the sum of its parts. More and more savvy winemakers are discovering an unexpected similarity between grape and

Winemaker: Greg Pollman started working at Fountain Wine Cellars in Cincinnati in 1974 and went to Sublette Winery in Cincinnati in the late 70s. He joined Valley Vineyards Estate Winery in Morrow, Ohio

You’ve followed all the rules. From the arrival of the grapes through pressing, racking, aging and bottling, you have meticulously scrutinized every step of the winemaking process. Nothing has been overlooked in

It was the writer Mark Twain who phrased it best, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” What does this have to do with wine bottles?

The sages of winemaking uniformly counsel patience. Yet what could be more frustrating than, after patiently stomping, crushing, adjusting, fermenting, and racking, to be told to wait? But many of wine’s great