Articles

Year in the Vineyard, Week #6 April 15-22, 2010 By Wes Hagen, VM/WM Clos Pepe This week in the vineyard saw some challenges, some rebirth, some rainfall, some progress, and as always

 (Another) Year in the Vineyard Wine Blog, Week #5 April 9-15, 2010 Viticulturama, Why Technology Matters, A Lamb By Any Other Name, Another Version of the LA Times Magazine Article. A Few

(Another) Year in the Vineyard, Week #4 A WineMaker Magazine Blog April 2-April 8, 2010 What Is Done Can’t Be Undone, Or Can It? More Cuteness than You can Shake a Crook

(Another) Year in the Vineyard, Week #3 3/25/10 to 4/1/10 Nature Makes Fools of Us All A Tough Week at the Clos as Nature Shows Her Chilly Hand (Don’t Forget All Photos

Budbreak is one of the most exciting times of year for the backyard winegrower. The snow has melted and you can feel the warmth of the sun on your face. The smell

Clos Pepe: A Vigneron’s Quest for Great Dirt (Carneros Press, 2009) chronicles the years between planting Sauvignon Blanc vines in Stephen Pepe’s Long Beach, California backyard to becoming a Pinot Noir and

(Another) Year in the Vineyard Week #2: March 18-25, 2010 “It’s My Party, So I’ll Write If I Want To…” (or) How a Vineyard Manager Spends his Birthday/’Day Off’ Ladies and gentlemen,

WineMaker Magazine “Another Year in the Vineyard”: A Wine Blog Week One: March 11-18, 2010 And So it Begins…  Welcome back to the 2010 version of the ‘Year in the Vineyard’ Wine

Home winemakers often resort to a little blending to improve their wines — to add a little more body, tweak the acid balance or deepen the color, or just because it takes

Chardonnay is one of the world’s most popular wine grapes, as evidenced by widespread plantings in France, Australia, South Africa, South America and the United States. The grape is thought to have

Patalkot, a 3,200-foot deep valley with an area of 79 square kilometers, is situated in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh in India. The valley is a home to the local tribes of

 When most people think of a great wine and what sets it apart from other wines, they typically look to the usual suspects: grape variety and quality, composition of the grape must,

Last summer, as I was leaving for work, I looked at our peach trees, which were bearing some of their first ripe fruit and thought, “They’ll be perfect by Friday!” Unfortunately, I

When some Canadian friends learned that I was about to write an article on making icewine in a warm-weather climate, they almost had a cow. “Next, you’ll be telling us you can

Home winemakers get into the hobby for a number of reasons, including making high quality wine for less money. But even though making your own wine can sometimes be an economical choice,

  The second annual WineMaker Magazine Conference took place on May 15 and 16 this year at the Napa Valley Marriott Hotel & Spa in the heart of wine country.  This conference,

“The First Duty of wine is to be Red . . . the second is to be a Burgundy.”Harry Waugh Harry Waugh’s quote (above) could have come from Mother Nature. Even nature

My first encounter with wine was when my Aunt Mary, took her nieces and nephews to California.  We were in San Francisco and the adults were drinking red dry wine and, at

Rioja has a long and interesting history — involving war, geographic isolation, restrictions on irrigation of vineyards and, of all things, inside-out pigs. Now, thanks to modernization, Rioja is reaching new heights.

Dominic Rivard is a consultant fruit winemaker producing commercial wines in Asia, North America and Europe and author of “The Ultimate Fruit Winemaker’s Guide” at www.fruitwineguide.com. A qualified sommelier, Dominic studied winemaking

After retirement from the military I spent my GI Bill learning to make pottery. For ten years I breathed, ate and slept pottery (timrobertspottery.com). With total immersion, even in something as pleasant

My hobby may be winemaking, but by day I am a commercial artist. I use house paint on a daily basis at my job,  so when I have the opportunity to create

Sometimes referred to as the “Englishman’s grape,” the common elderberry has been used to make wine for hundreds — possibly thousands — of years. By themselves, elderberries make a rich, flavorful wine,

What makes a wine age-worthy, and what can you do to create a wine worth cellaring.

In the fall of 1992 Rich Schell noticed a heavily-laden Concord grapevine in the backyard of his best friend, Dave Ruzzo’s house. He casually remarked, “We should make wine with these grapes.”