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People blend wines for many reasons and are able to fine tune their blends by drawing the best characteristics from each wine blended. For centuries winemakers have started their blends right in

Winemaking, like baking bread or beer brewing, is one of humankind’s most ancient food-manufacturing processes. And, just as baking and brewing leave behind cereal stalks and spent grain, winemaking produces one of

Wine Wizard replies: Indeed, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is a natural sugar substitute and one that is gaining in popularity with home winemakers. I have certainly heard of people using it with great

Though making fruit-based wine is a little different from making grape-based wine, you always want to make sure you’ve got enough sugar, acid, tannin and aromatic and flavor compounds to result in

The average person, upon hearing the term “winemaker’s garden,” will probably think of fruit, berries and perhaps a couple of grapevines, but it can mean so much more. Depending on what wines

Coffee wine, eh? I’ve heard of using strong black tea as a tannin additive and of using coffee in brewing recipes for a super-charged stout but I’ve never heard of making coffee

Congrats on embarking on the ever-fascinating and (just as often) maddening adventure of using oak in home winemaking! You’ve discovered what many of your predecessors already have — that it is sometimes

The first time I ever blended two wines was an exercise in ignorance. I had a dewberry wine that had beautiful color and clarity but tasted flat. I also had a blackberry

Dear Wine Wizard, I made 15 gallons (57 L) of wine in my basement and it won’t finish fermenting. Now I am left with a wine that is carbonated, which I do

Dear Wine Wizard, How do I get copper sulfate in accurate diluted food grade form? I would like to treat 5 gallons (19 L) of stinky fruit wine to get rid of

The short answer to your question is: 0.45 micron nominal filter pads are the industry standard for “sterile” filtration. These pads prevent all yeast and bacteria from getting through. So, if you

Congratulations for tackling one of the most interesting and esoteric of brews, the braggot (also spelled braggott or bragawd). A beverage that combines what some would say the best of what mead

Discussions of wine aging range well into the past, from the biblical story of Luke and putting new wine into old skins, to the ancient Roman interest in Falernian wine, which could

In 1963, I first experienced the romance of wine in the form of a basket-covered Chianti bottle stuffed with a candle and covered in dripping wax. It sat on a red and

The winners of the 2004 WineMaker Label Contest

On January 29, 2005, the Fort Mason in San Francisco will be transformed into a wine lover’s paradise. Nearly 300 wineries will be offering their Zinfandels to thousands of samplers. All of

Like you, many commercial wineries also feel that big bottles make great gifts. One can often see what the industry calls “large formats” displayed in restaurants that have done exceptionally well selling

Dear Wine Wizard, I bottle my wine in recycled bottles and give much of it away. A friend who is on the receiving end is critical of my choice in color type

Orv Madden and his wife LeAnn have a talent for turning their dreams into reality. I remember meeting them for the first time in the winter of 2003 at a breakfast restaurant

When Philip Hanyok pulled up to Melancy Hilltop Vineyards in Perry County, Pennsylvania, early last October, he found Mel Heffley, the vineyard’s owner, already deep in discussion with another home winemaker. Heffley

One evening this past winter, a friend was perusing my trophy shelf, where I exhibit my wines that have won medals or ribbons in amateur winemaking competitions. He picked up one bottle

Dear Wine Wizard, I made a Muscadine wine this year that ended up very dry with harsh flavor. I wanted it to have more of a grape flavor so I added some

Port wines are steeped in history and date back to sometime in the 17th century. It is said that a partnership between the British and Portugal and a shortage of wine from

Dear Wine Wizard, I used isinglass as a clarifier in my Viognier. I have it in a 55-gallon plastic food-grade barrel. It started to settle out some of the particles but never

Positive effects of oxidation? How can that be? Winemakers know that oxygen negatively affects wine and they process wine with the utmost care to prevent oxidation. Two common winemaking practices that have