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We share images and recap a trip Publisher Brad Ring recently led WineMaker readers on across South Australia’s different wine regions.

Summer in the vineyard means it is time to manage your vines’ canopy. Spraying, suckering, leaf removal, adjusting lateral shoots, and eventually fruit sampling and netting your vines all need to be done long before you start picking grapes. Keep up with your vineyard work throughout summer to make harvest easy.

Stuck in a rut and at the cusp of retirement, a couple buys a home with a backyard vineyard in Calaveras County, California. Determined to not let the grapes go to waste, the vineyard sprouts more than just grapes for them — a new hobby and joy to life.

Looking to advance your winemaking knowledge? Check out these wine education programs to start your journey down the path to a higher education in winemaking and the business of wine. Finger Lakes

Click here to watch the video playback of our Live Chat with home winemakers and authors Ken and Leah Stafford from

Click here to watch a replay of our Live Video Chat with WineMaker author Chik Brenneman from March 2025.

Lodi, California, is known for its production of Zinfandel wines that run the spectrum of wine styles. Three Lodi winemakers share their approaches to crafting wines from the quintessential American grape.

Looking at Brix (or specific gravity) alone isn’t a great indicator whether a wine is microbially stable, and therefore determining if there is risk of refermentation. Even home winemaking tools that measure residual sugar lump fermentable and non-fermentable sugars together. After years of performing tests, Daniel Pambianchi explains how winemakers can predict with confidence whether their wines are safe to bottle.

A pair of home winemakers share the results from trials they conducted this past harvest in techniques for making rosé. The results offer insight into what works, what doesn’t, and why rosés shouldn’t be judged by their color.

If you’ve made cheese, then you’ll be left with a considerable amount of whey as a byproduct. Why not use it to start a new fermentation project, such as whey wine, mead, or even liquor?

Wine and cheese go hand-in-hand in the WineMaker office. While making cheese may seem complicated, making wine probably did before you started too. Follow this advice and you’ll be on your way to making cheese, including recipes for cheese curds, Asiago, and Caerphilly.

The dark-skinned Tempranillo grape is most associated with the red wines of Spain and being the most prominent grape in the famed Rioja blends. Learn to craft your own Tempranillo at home.

Chitosan is a product every home winemaker should be familiar with, and likely has around their cellar. It is used to help clarify wine, but its benefits go well beyond that. Newer chitosan-based products are also beneficial for microbial stability as well as malolactic and acetic bacteria suppression.

The Wine Wiz offers her wizdom to bring a tart wine into balance, as well as ways to add body to a wine and why non-alcoholic wine production should be left to the pros.

Click here to watch a replay of our live video chat with “Backyard Vines” columnist Wes Hagen from February, 2025.

Click here to watch a replay of our Live Video Chat with Technical Editor and “Techniques” columnist Bob Peak from January 2025.

An amateur winemaker/woodworker shares a do-it-yourself project that combines both of his favorite hobbies. The build repurposes a 5-L (1.3-gallon) oak barrel that has been retired from aging wine into a wine-serving vessel. Now he’s serving homemade wine from a bag in style.

Realizing the large temperature swings in his garage don’t make for a great environment to conduct fermentations, a home winemaker converted chest freezers to temperature-controlled “cellars” that cool or heat to a preset temperature for both fermenting and bulk aging his wines.

The hardest part of growing grapes may be keeping them healthy and on the vine until harvest. From fungal diseases to insect and animal control, there are a lot of other things after your grapes! But don’t worry, there is a way to keep all of these at bay if you are prepared and know how.

We share our favorite amateur wine labels entered into WineMaker’s 2025 Label Contest — from a faceless woman and a woman’s face seemingly appearing in fermenting must, to a design for a Scottish fiddler and the wine color of the year.

Two amateurs who have won Best of Show medals for their estate-grown wines share advice for late-winter pruning and vineyard care.

Traminette is a white hybrid grape grown all over the northern areas of North America that can make extremely aromatic wines. From crisp, dry examples to late-harvest and even fortified wines, the grape is a fun one for home winemakers to play with.

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.

After harvest is over may seem like a great time for the home viticulturist to sit back and take a deep breath. Just don’t take too long of a nap, because the work never ends when you’re growing grapes! Wes Hagen outlines what every grape grower should be doing during these cold months to prepare for the next successful growing season.

The annual WineMaker Magazine Conference isn’t just about attending seminars and learning, it’s also about camaraderie. One longtime attendee shares how friendships formed at a conference have carried well beyond the yearly in-person event.