Articles

Wine brings people together. This is cause for great reflection for me personally because as you read this, I will have been retired from the University of California Teaching and Research Winery

I’d never seen my father drink a glass of wine — until he became a winemaker. He retired from a full-time sales career and besides golf, gardening, and a part-time job selling

QI am planning to try a new product on some older cabernet wine (2015 vintage) that has not yet been bottled. It has a harshness that might be related to tannins. It

Get to know the most common wine faults, their causes, and fixes you can try to alleviate them.

He’s been called the “God of Cabernet,” been named the Winemaker of the Year, and has produced “virtually perfect” wines, according to wine critics. Now, Robert Foley shares his best advice on how you can make the best wines at home.

Méthode Champenoise is the most traditional way to make sparkling wine. It requires extra time, attention to detail, and more steps than other methods of sparkling wine production. However, it also makes the highest quality bubbly, which is why it is the only technique used by Champagne makers. Learn how to master this technique at home.

Live Chat with Wes Hagen, which took place on April 25, 2019.

This past April, 50 experienced judges evaluated a total of 1,224 wine kit entries as part of the overall 2015 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition. This large collection of kit entries was

The culinary world and hobby winemaking collide in an upstate New York college campus where one man’s mission is to introduce the winemaking hobby to chefs-in-training.

There are many reasons that 10 wines made from the same grape may taste completely different, and often it is because the winemaker planned for them to. Learn about how the location a grape is grown, as well as the decisions a winemaker must make, impact the outcome of a wine.

Barrels offer a lot more benefits to wine than just oak taste and tannins, but full-size barrels are often out of reach for the home winemaker. Smaller barrels that are more home winemaker-friendly pose some nuances when it comes to wood-to-wine ratio, but they offer the same benefits when you know how to use them.

If a barrel isn’t in your immediate winemaking plans — or if your barrel has been filled so many times it has become neutral in oak character — there are many other options on the market in the forms of oak alternatives. Get to know the options to see which may be best for your cellar.

Riesling is one of the noble grapes of Germany and can produce a wide array of complex white wines. Learn some of the key elements and techniques that winemakers can utilize when crafting wine from these grapes.

The Wizard explores the many sensations that tasters experience as a wine goes from grapes, through fermentation, and into the early stages of aging; in order to be a better judge of a wine’s character when finished. Also, a reader has a question about properly adding acid to a barrel.

Owning your own oak barrel can yield great rewards when handled properly. We asked the advice of two professionals that know what it takes to care for a new barrel and keep them in tip-top shape.

Many winemakers and wine drinkers can get stuck in the mentality that wine is only made from Vitis vinifera grapes, and any other additions or deviations from this platform is a clear step down. But there is a whole world of wines outside of vinifera grapes.

Q How do I get copper sulfate in accurate diluted food grade form? I would like to treat 5 gallons (19 L) of stinky fruit wine to get rid of the rotten

The the purpose of this project was to minimize oxygen and achieve longer shelf life on fruit wines. One trick commercial folks use to increase shelf life is packaging under a vacuum.

Live Chat with Jason Phelps, which took place on February 13, 2019.

Get the latest winemaking news, products, and events happening in the hobby (& professional) world.

Q I am a novice home winemaker and have been contemplating making the move from carboy and bottle-aging to barrel-aging some of my reds. It is my understanding that a new barrel

Q I have been making red Zinfandel wine at home with juice concentrate. I‘ve noticed crystals forming inside and they stick to the bottle. When you shake the bottle they disappear, but

Q I have a question about sanitizing. I just mixed a fresh batch of potassium metabisulfite (1.5 oz. powder to 1 gallon water) to sanitize my equipment, and this latest batch has

People tend to stick to the familiar and pleasurable in life, and while there’s nothing wrong with enjoying your favorite Chardonnay or Zinfandel on a regular basis, remember the last time you

Live Chat with Bob Peak, which took place on January 16, 2019.