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In our February / March 2026 issue, we review when to bottle your white wines and what needs to happen before bottling. Plus, check out our 2026 label contest winners, explore vino cotto, and how to start planning for the upcoming growing season.
A look at the steps required in making white wines through winter and spring and how the timing of each step impacts when the wine is ready to bottle — from heat and cold stability, blending decisions, filtration, SO2 additions, and more.
We share all of the winning labels from the 2026 WineMaker Label Contest, which include some repeat winners as well as new names from the hundreds of entries submitted.
Vino cotto is a traditional, semi-sweet Italian wine that is as much a culinary process as a winemaking one. Unlike any other wine, vino cotto’s fermentation takes place after hours of boiling the juice into a syrup. It then goes to barrels, from which it can be enjoyed by the glass or poured over foods for years to come.
Terroir plays an important role in wine made from Syrah (or Shiraz, as it is called in Australia). From tart fruit, vegetal, pepper, and savory herb characters in cooler climate varietal wines to more spicy and fruit-forward flavors of plum, blackberry, and blueberry in warmer climate grapes. Both are great, but it’s important to know what to expect from the grapes you source.
During a relatively slow period in the vineyard, now is a perfect time to start planning for the upcoming growing season. Tasting wines from the previous vintage can give the home viticulturist clues on what they’re doing right as well as what adjustments they may need to make to their farming practices.
A longtime home winemaker shares some of his earliest memories of helping his Grampa make wine in the 1950s — which began with a drive to the nearby produce center to buy lugs of grapes sold from railroad boxcars and ended with family and friends gathered around the winemaking equipment.
Professional winemaker Chik Brenneman shares how malolactic fermentation (MLF) impacts wines, when it may be necessary, and why winemakers should always have a purpose when doing an MLF.
