Articles

What does “topping up” mean and when should it be done?

I prefer to have as much information as I can about where my raw material is coming from, and being able to handle the actual grapes is one way to help you get there.

Buying your first lug of grapes can be intimidating, but it does not need to be. Get some pointers before committing to your first box of grapes.

It was not long ago that Viognier was almost an extinct grape varietal. Luckily for wine fans, both grape growers and winemakers have learned some tricks to unlock this grape’s true potential.

Meet the Blue Bulls Wine Company, a group of New Jersey-based career first responders who also like to dabble in the art of winemaking. If you mess with these bulls, you may get a horn . . . of wine?

A good grape sorter is fast, efficient, and always with a keen eye towards prioritizing what grapes to use and what grapes to discard. Alex Russan walks winemakers through some of the crucial keys to being a good sorter.

Supposedly there are many ways to skin a cat, but we’re not familiar with any of them. Luckily for winemakers, Bob Peak knows many ways to crush a grape, and is willing to explain.

Grab a seat, take out your pencil, and get ready for an introduction into the master class on the world’s most popular grape. Guest lecturers include three experts on making Cabernet wines.

Press cuts give the winemaker more blending options to create a wine precisely as it was envisioned. Learn if, and when, press cuts may benefit your winemaking.

You could also try to take your lime wine and see what other kind of fun beverages you could make with it as a mixer . . .

An overview of this year’s competition, which included 2,299 entries from winemakers in six countries, 48 American states, and 5 Canadian provinces.

How ripe your grapes are when picked is one of the most important factors in determining what your wine will taste like. Here is a closer look at how a grape’s development affects the resulting wine.

Because of their chemical composition under wine pH (acidity) and fermentation conditions it’s quite possible these color compounds won’t stay red, or in solution, very long.

TCA, or the “corked” off-aroma, is caused by ambient molds interacting with a chlorine molecule of some kind, usually from domestic water supply.

When done using your winemaking equipment, make sure it is properly cleaned and stored so it will be ready to use next harvest season.

Wine and chocolate are a match made in heaven. But it doesn’t have to be two separate delicacies. Home winemakers can actually combine the two by infusing wine with chocolate.

Most closures are packaged pre-sanitized, usually with sulfur dioxide in the sealed bags that come from the manufacturer.

There are temperature ranges advisable for fermenting all wine styles, but how does each end of that range affect the aroma, taste, and body of your wine?

Here are the top 100 wine kits from the 2017 WineMaker Magazine International Amateur Wine Competition.

Learn the basics of what sulfur dioxide is, as well as when and how to use sulfite in your winemaking.

To maximize your chances of a successful in-the-bottle fermentation you need to prepare a starter culture.

I would argue that the rapidity with which the sugar is consumed (and the density is lowered) is almost as important as the level of sugar itself . . .

What you’re experiencing is the precipitation over time of all sorts of complex tannins and colored compounds.

In my experience, doing a traditional cold stability where you chill the wine down and then filter off any precipitation won’t shift the acidity enough to notice it in the taste.

Most folks I talk to say that sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite are interchangeable in winemaking.