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June/July 2024

Tips on crafting the perfect summer pinot grigio. Plus, master the bottling process, ideas for wine cocktails, and home vineyard summer care.

In this issue

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    Flower Power

    You can make wine from just about anything. From dandelions and roses to ferns and parsnips, we share advice and recipes for wine from flowers, ferns, and root vegetables.

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    Elevate Your Wine with Wine Cocktails

    Looking to enjoy some of your homemade wines a different way? Try using them as ingredients in wine-based cocktails! We share tips and recipes to make cocktails that are sure to be a hit at gatherings.

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    Pinot Grigio: The Underrated Superstar

    Pinot Grigio is often an introductory white wine for consumers — light, refreshing, though unremarkable. That doesn’t have to be the case, though! Learn from winemakers across the world how they craft Pinot Grigio that will rival any white wine’s complexity.

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    Special Purpose Wine Yeasts

    Sometimes we want a wine yeast that will strictly ferment a wine dry in the conditions available to it, but other instances require special purpose wine yeasts. Learn about yeast strains that serve more purposes than simply completing fermentation — be it for high-vigor, malic acid management, minimizing faults, and more.

  • article

    Apples, Meet Grape Pomace

    After pressing grapes for wine, a home winemaker decided seven years ago to add the pomace to their fresh-pressed apple juice to learn the impact it would have on cider production. They’ve continued this experiment every year since, with some variation, and are sharing the results.

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    Summer Care in the Vineyard

    The summer is a critical time in the home vineyard. Wes Hagen shares the physiological needs of mature vines in the summer and lays out a schedule for what growers should be doing in the warmest months.

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    Fabulous Frontenac Gris

    Our newest columnist, Maureen Macdonald, shares her own experiences and advice for crafting a Frontenac Gris of any style in her first “Varietal Focus” column.

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    Monitoring Malolactic, Adding Skins, Timing Purchases, Airlocks

    The Wine Wizard shares the signs to look for and ways to monitor malolactic fermentation, offers tips on adding supplemental grape skins to a red wine, and when to move a red wine’s fermentation from open containers to under an airlock.

  • wine-wizard

    When to Add an Airlock

  • wine-wizard

    Timing Purchases

  • wine-wizard

    Adding Skins to a Red Ferment

  • wine-wizard

    Monitoring Malolactic

  • technique

    Bottling Basics

    Familiarize yourself with the critical steps and equipment required to bottle your wine.

  • article

    South African Wine Safari

    We recap and share pictures from a recent WineMaker trip with readers to the wine regions of South Africa.

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    2024 Wine Education

    Looking to advance your winemaking knowledge? Check out these wine education programs to start your journey down the path to a higher education in winemaking and the business of wine.