Articles

Brettanomyces is often an ambient microbe in the air we breathe, but that’s no reason to go inviting concentrated and healthy stocks of it into your cellar.

I find that when sugar is that low, the process of re-starting actually lowers the overall quality and you’re better off bottling slightly sweet (sterile filtered).

Because sulfur dioxide is so easily-oxidizable, hydrogen peroxide naturally ‘finds’ the easily-oxidized SO₂ and the two hopefully cancel each other out.

If you add some kind of sweetener that is fermentable (table sugar, grape concentrate, maple syrup, honey, etc.) you risk an uncontrolled re-fermentation in the bottle, which is never fun.

Most top-scoring red wines made in the U.S. are bottled after 18–24 months in barrel.

Water softeners add another wrinkle, namely because they tend to add a lot of sodium.

A really innovative and completely natural way to control Japanese beetles is to implement a longer-term biological control program utilizing one of the insect’s natural enemies, the ‘milky spore’ bacteria.

Some home winemakers cool down must ferments by freezing gallon water jugs and tossing them (closed tightly) into fermenting totes, bins or trash cans of must during a punchdown.

Q Is there any wine grape that can be successfully grown in an area with a heat summation of 1,200? I am near the Pacific Coast and summers are not very warm,

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.