Techniques

Raisins can be used to add body, flavor, sugar, and complexity to grape wines. They can add a wine-like character to fruit wines. And they can even be made into wine on their own. Learn more about the use of raisins in winemaking.

While it sometimes gets a bad rap because too much oxygen can destroy a wine, oxygen is also very important to the winemaking process. Learn the six ways to use oxygen to your wine’s benefit.

Many homebrewers of beer are unknowingly very familiar with the Charmat method to carbonate wine. If you are unfamiliar with this easy, albeit more equipment-heavy, process to produce bubbly wines, Bob Peak explains the technique.

As a home winemaker, you’ve likely spent years taking every precaution at your disposal to assure that your juice does not oxidize prior to fermentation. However, there are a small-yet-growing number of winemakers out there who intentionally oxidize their juice with an aim to reduce phenol content. The technique is called hyperoxidation, and it is only for the brave.

The benefits of cold soaking are debated among winemakers, but those who subscribe to the technique of keeping (usually red) grapes cool for a few days prior to fermentation swear by it.

Many wine aficionados view volatile acidity (VA) as a very fine line between a good thing and a bad thing. Find out ways to control VA so that you can walk that line between a wine boost and a wine defect.

While racking may seem like a tedious task at times, its impact on a wine can be profound. Learn some of the techniques that you can use and the decision-making process winemakers should consider before each racking cycle.

Making non-traditional sparkling wine at home through force carbonation is simple and can yield amazing results. With just a few pieces of equipment, one can make delicious bubbly in a matter of

This Valentine’s Day, wouldn’t it be great to break open a bottle of your own homemade bubbly? Learn from two winemakers producing highly acclaimed sparkling wines about the nuances of making them at home.

Tannins can provide a wine with a lot more than just astringency. They can also be useful in white and rosé wines as well if used properly. Bob Peak gives a tour of the benefits of various tannin products available to hobby winemakers.

You want to start a heated and emotionally charged discussion on a controversial topic? Ask a group of amateur winemakers for their thoughts on the impact of filtration on wine. Chances are

You may be curious about a way of making wine intermediate between using fresh fruit and making kit wines. Increasingly popular, the hobby of making wine from grape juice comes in two

There are many points throughout the winemaking process where a winemaker must make adjustments
in order to influence the final outcome. When the grapes come into the winery, the very first choices you will make as a winemaker will be done in the unfermented must.

Commercial winemakers and wine industry professionals don’t become experts overnight. It can take many vintages to figure out what works and what doesn’t work in a home or commercial winery. But that

Indeed, for 4–6 months of the year, the frigid and snowy landscape hardly seems like a great place to plant a vineyard. Temperatures in January and February drop sufficiently low to kill

Sherry is the fortified wine from Jerez, Spain, made in soleras and conditioned with flor yeast.

. . .lurking inside the heads of many home winemakers is the urge to make an absolute blockbuster, a jaw-dropping, mind-bending, 800-pound gorilla of a wine.

The mantra for the quest for making a big blockbuster type of wine is “more is better” — more sugar in the grapes, more alcohol in the wine, more extraction, more color

In spite of their long history as wine preservatives dating to the days of the Romans, sulfites can receive a bad rap. Many suspect that sulfites cause headaches or believe that any preservative is harmful, and so, there is a strong push to eliminate — or at least reduce — the use of sulfites and any additives perceived not to be “natural.” Let’s take a look at some of the strategies to reduce sulfite use.

We have all heard the expression that great wine is made in the vineyard. And while we home winemakers generally accept this as truth, nowhere has this been more obvious to me

Inexperienced amateur winemakers are often misled thinking that making red wine is easier — or at least more foolproof — than making white wine because reds are better protected by polyphenols from

Keep the color in your reds by learning about color stability and how to achieve it.

By far, the most prolific wild grape in Texas is the widely distributed Vitis mustangensis, or Mustang grape. It was historically the major wine grape of early settlers and remains a dominant

You can make wine even if you live in a small space. Here are some winemakers who do just that.

Being a lover of Pinot Noir, I am intrigued and mystified by Burgundy. During my visit to Burgundy as part of a film crew working on a television series about wine, I