Import Source: Quark

Fill It Up With all the preparatory work — rinsing, sanitizing and more rinsing — bottling can become overwhelming as one’s production increases. That can quickly turn into many hours of bottling

Country wine is the informal term that has been used for years to define fermented beverages made from ingredients other than grapes. This can include fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs. Wine made

Grape Wine Ah yes . . . grapes! Now that we’ve covered the science behind the winemaking process, you are ready to gather some grapes and start making wine from scratch. From

A Brief Glossary of Some Key Terms Brix: A scale of measuring sugar concentration in grapes, juice, must and wine. Instruments such as refractometers and hydrometers are used to measure degrees Brix

Kit Wine by Jeff ChorniakA typical wine kit contains only a few ingredients: A bag of preserved grape concentrate, yeast and the additives you need to make wine. Not all kits include

Welcome winemakers! Although you’ve entered a part of the website labeled our “Beginner’s Guide,” we purposely designed it to incorporate the essential skills and knowledge that successful winemakers of all levels must

A reader starts a vineyard in New England. “It is great to wake up in the morning, make a cup of coffee and walk out to the vineyard to check on the vines, training off shoots as I go along.”

This past year brought challenges and rewards for home vineyardists — and also a lot of questions for our vineyard expert Wes Hagen.

Indeed, for 4–6 months of the year, the frigid and snowy landscape hardly seems like a great place to plant a vineyard. Temperatures in January and February drop sufficiently low to kill

Pinotage is the most recognized — though not the most widely grown — South African red wine grape.

Thanks for clarifying your question a little bit. I am glad to hear you regularly top off your barrels, it’s a practice all of us need to do. Alcohol and water definitely

In this article, Michael Larner discusses the wines of the Rhône region of France, and one of the most important winemaking parts of Rhône winemaking is blending. Learn about the basics of

When we are together bottling, corking and labeling the wine, we are all eager and happy to complete the project at hand, so we can enjoy the finished product.

Want to make a big smashmouth red wine with grapes from your home vineyard? Then you’ll need to grow big or go home.

Sherry is the fortified wine from Jerez, Spain, made in soleras and conditioned with flor yeast.

. . .lurking inside the heads of many home winemakers is the urge to make an absolute blockbuster, a jaw-dropping, mind-bending, 800-pound gorilla of a wine.

Grape juice is a pretty tough environment if you’re a yeast cell. The pH is low, there’s high osmotic stress (stress from the environmental conditions being such that the flow of water

And you thought there was only one time each year to make wine from fresh grapes; in the autumn season. But, surprise, there is another whole world south of the Equator. As

Looking for a cold-hardy white to grow in a colder northern clime? Meet the University of Minnesota’s La Crescent.

Thanks to the University of Minnesota, wine grapes can thrive in some of the coldest climates in North America (and beyond). In this issue, two winemakers discuss making wine with the Minnesota-bred,

For those that would like to start getting a better handle on the fermentation temperature of their wines, you’ve found the right spot.

“Grapevine Canopy: The above ground portion of the grapevine formed by the shoot system. It includes shoots (leaves, petioles, shoot stems, shoot tips, lateral shoots and tendrils) and the fruit, trunk and

There is no denying: Sulfur dioxide (SO2) can be a source of headaches for winemakers — even without drinking any wine. Why does SO2 continue to be such a perplexing and confusing

The two changes we are going to discuss in this article are alcohol levels and tannin. It’s important to remember before we start that any change you make is completely interconnected to the character of the wine in what can be very subtle ways.

Materials for Project: 1.) sand paper grits 40, 80, 120, 240 2.) matte black paint 3.) 3 or 4 coach bolts with washers and nuts 4.) drill and drill bits 5.) 3