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Sweetening Wine Without Refermentation
MEMBERS ONLYUnfortunately, there are only so many options for preventing fermentation in sweet wines and they all involve some degree of sacrifice or difficulty. The list of “cons” is long compared with the one “pro” of an arrested fermentation. First off, you’re correct that adding sorbate can sometimes produce off-flavors over time. Secondly, fortifying with alcohol
Vineyard Trellis and Training
FREEThere are several options available to a backyard grape grower when considering which trellis configuration and which training system to use. How do we focus on what’s important in a trellis and
Sluggish Fermentations — Cabernet Franc
MEMBERS ONLYSee my response here regarding general information about stuck and sluggish fermentations. Your wine is a lot closer to dryness (essentially 0 °Brix) than the previous reader’s sweetest lot, so I don’t know if I would recommend a re-start. When I’ve attempted re-starts below 0 °Brix, the extra added yeast and nutrients just make the
In the Wine Lab
FREESooner or later, if you make wine at home, you are going to do some chemical analysis. To establish (or expand) your wine testing capability, what will it take? There are some
Battling VA
MEMBERS ONLYIt sounds like you took the right approach. A VA (volatile acidity) of 0.70 is not “out of this world” high, though it is a little elevated. Especially if this was a wine over a year old, a VA like this wouldn’t necessarily alarm me unless it made a big jump (say from 0.50 to
Using Inert Gases in Winemaking
FREEBlanket, flush, sparge, transfer, dispense. To exclude air while doing any of these things to your wine, your best bet is the use of an inert gas. Learn some your options and tricks.
Viognier
FREEIn the 1960s, Viognier seemed to be an endangered grape, planted only in dwindling numbers in a pair of obscure redoubts in France, the shrinking Condrieu region and the one-winery Château-Grillet AOC.
Unoaked Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYNot using oak on wine is a time-honored tradition for many varietals and styles, and often for good reason. There are few things as disconcerting and deeply weird as a heavily oaked Riesling, and few rosé wines show better with a heavy layer of deeply toasted oak covering their finish. Oak just doesn’t make sense
Managing Acid in Fruit Wines
MEMBERS ONLYGrapes want to be wine. That may be oversimplified, but the fact is that the vast majority of commercial wines — and most homemade wines — use winegrapes as their base. The balance of flavors, aromas, sugar and acid that naturally occurs in grapes is unmatched by any other fruit for the direct production of
Making Wine In A Limited Space
FREEFor many home winemakers, space — or the lack of it — is the final frontier, the one thing holding their winemaking aspirations back. See how some home winemakers have dealt with this problem.
Strawberry Wine Color Question
MEMBERS ONLYCertainly feel free to experiment with food coloring in your strawberry wine but be sure to keep it food-grade and keep it modest to maintain the color within the realm of believability. Food coloring is pretty concentrated so a little dab should do it. You might want to ask yourself why your wine turned orange
Sugar Options For Fruit Wine
MEMBERS ONLYCane sugar, or sucrose, derived from the sugar cane plant, has a chemical structure of C12H22O11, is a di-saccharide comprised of the mono-saccharides glucose and fructose and is found in many plant sources, most well-known being the aforementioned sugar cane plant, the sugar beet root and sap from the maple tree. I think you mean
Oak Chip Recommendations For Chardonnay
MEMBERS ONLYFirst, make sure that the portion left over, i.e. the portion you are not bottling now and will be adding more oak to, will be stored in a completely full (or “topped up”) container. This is critical to protect wine, especially white wines, from the ravages of oxygen and aerophilic spoilage organisms. Now, on to
Winemaking From Frozen Must
FREEIt seems a short time ago when, if you wanted to make wine, you waited for the fall harvest season when grapes would start arriving from the West Coast. Everyone would be
Metatartaric Acid In Wine Kit
MEMBERS ONLYYour question about metatartaric acid is a good one and one that brings to mind similar confusion and questions many of us have when faced with a litany of fining agents (and specific directions about how and when to use them). It sometimes seems like we can wing it, skip or combine steps or eliminate
Pinot Noir
FREEWhile traveling recently in the Burgundy region of France, it was easy to see why the world loves Pinot Noir. It is the only red grape grown in that region, and the
Canadian Clubs: Dry Finish
FREEIf winemaking appeals to you and you live in Ontario, the Amateur Winemakers of Ontario (AWO) may be just what you’re looking for. AWO is the umbrella organization of 33 independent
Making the Most of Your Winery Visit
MEMBERS ONLYHeading to wine country is a field trip for adults. You’ve got beautiful scenery, interesting people, new beverages to enjoy and an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of your everyday life. But how do you make the most of your winery field trip? As a winemaker, you have insight into the
Making the Most of Your Winery Visit
MEMBERS ONLYHeading to wine country is a field trip for adults. You’ve got beautiful scenery, interesting people, new beverages to enjoy and an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of your everyday life. But how do you make the most of your winery field trip? As a winemaker, you have insight into
Young Wine Kits: Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYBack in the April-May 2002 issue of WineMaker I wrote an article about picking the right wine kit. The McGuffin of the article was the idea that there was a right kit for every winemaker, based on what time-frame they were looking to drink it in: obviously, if you’re pressed for time, most super-premium
Quick Drinking Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYIn this article I’ll be discussing “vinfanticide,” which is wines to drink on bottling day (or before). And in the next issue I’ll cover super-early drinking wines (under three months of age). I know that there are a few kit winemakers reading this article who just got a shocked look on their face: “You can
Orange County Competition: Dry Finish
FREEOn June 9th, members of the Orange County Wine Society (OCWS) gathered at oh-dark-thirty at the Orange County Fair and Event Center in Costa Mesa, California for our 36th annual Homewine Competition,
Chocolate Wine
MEMBERS ONLYSo you want to put some chocolate flavor, texture and aroma into your wines, eh? My approach would definitely be to use the chocolate grace-notes as an ending treatment to your wine, as opposed to a fermentative one. This is how a “friend of a friend” of mine made something similar; they trialed in additives
Choosing the Right Fermenter
FREEWhen setting out to make wine from grapes, one of the first major decisions is what you will use as a fermentation container. For most winemaking, you will need a primary fermenter
Adding Copper
MEMBERS ONLYAs you’ve probably read in my columns and in the Winemaker’s Answer Book, though I like to “let wine be what it will be,” when it comes to potentially toxic things like high residual levels of copper, I like to only add — when I really have to — in measurable amounts. Though admittedly it