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Live Chat with Alison Crowe, which took place on July 16, 2020.

Small-scale glycol cooling systems have become popular in recent years thanks to the homebrewing community. However, their benefits translate seamlessly for home winemakers. Learn more about when and how a glycol system can help in your home winery.

Albariño is Spain’s most famous white grape, best known from the country’s northwestern most department, Galicia, particularly the Rias Baixas (pronounced “Rias Bye-shas”) Denominación de Origen (D.O.). The jury is out on

Tempranillo is a Spanish grape best known as the main ingredient in that country’s respected Rioja wines. It’s also the basis of Vega Sicilia, arguably Spain’s most famous vino.  Tempranillo wines can

Explore the various equipment available to home winemakers for bulk aging wine prior to bottling — from plastic and glass, to stainless steel and oak. Each has its own benefits that can help elevate your wine.

The second and perhaps the most important reason is that if you’re doing your final rinsing with an acid blend that contains malic acid, you’re potentially releasing a food source for various bacteria into your equipment and into your cellar’s environment (like drains).

The good news is that most wines that you can buy off the supermarket shelf don’t contain a lot of yeast cells; if they did, the wines would look cloudy and might even re-ferment in the bottle.

I never use any chlorine-containing cleaning compounds in my winemaking and don’t recommend it to anyone. There are plenty of alternatives for cleaning, one of my favorites being sodium percarbonate.

Shelter-in-place orders have been a challenge for many folks. But one winemaking club has found a way to keep their meetings going while being socially responsible. Welcome to the age of the virtual club.

Elmer Swenson helped revolutionize the greater wine world with his cold-hardy grape breeding program. One such grape varietal that emerged from all his work was LaCrosse, with five species of grapes in its heritage. Learn about this grape made popular in colder climates — for good reasons.

Dumping your pomace and finding the grapes still juice-laden after pressing is frustrating. The Wizard has some pointers for getting the most from your grapes as well as baking bread with wine yeast and the concerns of light strike on your wines.

Live Chat with Maureen Macdonald, which took place on June 17, 2020.

My situation is that the total acidity (TA) rises during the aging process.What could be causing this?

Live Chat with Pat Henderson, which took place on May 13, 2020.

Polyphenolics are usually associated with red wines, but there are definitely processing choices and stylistic options where polyphenolics play a role in whites, rosé, and sparkling wines also.

Relative to grape wine, “berry wine” is a diverse category, encompassing anything from strawberries to blueberries to uncommon local berries few have heard of. The general idea is the same as making

Cidermaking is a journey. Don’t be fooled by anyone who tells you it’s easy, as developing a delicious hard cider requires a lot more artistry than simply adding yeast to apple juice.

The goal for experienced and new winemakers alike is a product that is both pleasant in taste and appearance. Unfortunately for many new winemakers the result is stubborn cloudiness with sediment, or

What would you do if your kids brought home Juicy Juice boxes every day, but never drank them? One man decided to ferment it all!

In its homeland in the south of France, Roussanne grapes love some heat . . . probably one reason that it’s found a new home in the Texas Hill Country. Learn about this white grape that can stand up to being a varietal wine when conditions are right or blended with others.

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

While the concept that is listed on some wine bottles or talked about in literature — % new oak — seems simple, there is a lot of nuance to this term. Learn about the concept as well as problems caused from overcompensating to fix a hydrogen sulfide stink with copper. Plus, the Wizard talks about the new need for sanitation in our world.

Greetings from WineMaker,With the quickly evolving situation worldwide due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we thought a helpful way to serve both hobby winemakers and winemaking retail suppliers was to provide a list

It seems to me like your Carmenère is a candidate for one of the “Wine Wizard’s” cheapest, easiest and most favorite ways to improve a tannic wine; egg white fining!

I’m glad you sent this question, though, because it brings up an important rule of the world of corks: corks must have a certain amount of moisture and “give” in order to work to keep the wine in and air (mostly) out.