Import Source: InDesign

Learn the basics of how and when to use a hydrometer in your winemaking process.

Spring is here, and that means a new winemaking season is upon us! A couple of experienced winemakers share the joys that come with making wine from South America and South Africa, as they recall their recent experience making Pinotage wine from South Africa last spring.

If you have ever encountered volatile sulfur compounds in wine, of which hydrogen sulfide is the most common, you know how repulsive the smell can be. Learn the causes and solutions.

Sure, some wines are supposed to be carbonated, but most aren’t. To avoid unwanted bubbles in your table wines, you need to degas your wine. Learn how, and when, to do it so you never pour an unexpected bottle of fizzy wine again.

Wine is frequently transferred or “racked” into another vessel to leave the byproducts of the process (known as lees) behind. If you make larger batches of wine at home, using a pump can make this process easier.

Balance in a vineyard is defined as a vine that has enough leaves to ripen a small to moderate crop load. To achieve that goal, a good vineyard manager needs to pay close attention to what’s happening among the vines this time of year.

There are many components in wine that all need to work together to create balance. Find out how to juggle acidity, alcohol, residual sugar, tannins, color, flavor components, and more.

In the fourth installment of our year-long series about how homemade wine is made using home-grown grapes in Upstate New York, it’s time to check on finished fermentations and prune the grapevines.

Wine, as I’ve often written, is a complex chimerical soup. Wine naturally contains lots of different amino acids and some of those amino acids are in long-chain form and actually are proteins.

There is a lot more to off-dry wines than what you may perceive from mass-produced discount bottles from the supermarket. A little sweetness with balanced acidity can add complexity and create a

Learn the basics of how and where to age your homemade wines.

As a veteran winemaker, some of the initial joys of winemaking begin to fade, however as the winemaker understands more about the process and becomes more in tune with the wine, the potential for new astonishments arise.

We’d all love to make wine from the perfect grapes picked with ideal sugars, acidity, and pH. Unfortunately, often due to reasons beyond our control, that is not always how grapes arrive at the home winery. In that case, the winemaker has a number of decisions that must be made.

You can never be too prepared in your winery when the grapes come in from harvest. Follow our guidelines for crush and press success.

When I started graduate school at UC-Davis in 1995, one of my first classes was a seminar series. Being the first session of the academic year, a round of introductions started the

Ah, yes, the joys of wood. We use wood in the winery for barrels and barrel-alternatives of course but, especially for the small-scale winemaker, wooden presses are still often part of our

Even the most ideal climates for growing grapes face certain hardships, but growing vines in colder climates definitely have more than their share. Get tips on what to grow and what precautions

In the final installment of our year-long series, the wines are bulk aged, oaked, and bottled.

Magnesium Sulfate (MgSO4), AKA Epsom salts, is a very common vineyard amendment. It can be applied as a foliar spray during the growing season to provide vines with magnesium and sulfur. Magnesium,

A reader shares plans for his homemade wine press.

A Texas winemaker wanted to indulge a friend who has always wanted to make his own wine by buying a wine kit as a birthday gift. But little did she know all the choices she would need to make before settling on the right one!

When the editors at WineMaker suggested quality control (QC) for a story, I was delighted to take it on. I have a long personal and professional history with QC and it infuses

You may have noticed the “orange wines” that have been popping up on trendy wine lists lately. These are white wines that are purposely exposed to skin contact and oxidized to produce wines that are quite orange in appearance.

Winemakers have to decide how long to macerate their grapes to make the best wine. But how? Too little skin contact and the wines can lack color or body; too much contact and you wind up with wines that are too bitter or astringent. Learn more about skin contact to make an informed decision.

Pat Henderson, Chief Winemaker at Sonoma County, California’s famed Kenwood Vineyards, shares some universal winemaking advice that he has learned over the course of his more than 35 commercial vintages, and from his early years as a hobby winemaker.