Date: Aug-Sep 2013
Home Vineyard Bookshelf
MEMBERS ONLYIf you want to experiment with your backyard vineyard, these references may be very helpful. All are readily available from major booksellers, or the UC-Davis online bookstore: Making Good Wine: A Manual of Winemaking Practice for Australia and New Zealand, Bryce Rankine, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2004. While it was written for winemakers in Australia and
Perfecting Pyment, Vinifera Vines, and Over-Yeasting
MEMBERS ONLY. . . you could also buy some powdered grape tannin, use oak chips, or even use a cup of strong black tea to add some tannin backbone to the wine if it’d be tough for you to obtain grape skins.
Over-yeasting?
MEMBERS ONLYThere are a few effects on a wine if you add more yeast. Number one, the fermentation might start a little faster and go to completion faster because there are simply more cells to eat the sugar, and each can only eat a certain amount of sugar at a time. This will, in turn, increase
Bottle Selection For Sparkling Wine
FREEAh, the Wiz has visions of broken bottles in your future and it’s a prognostication I wouldn’t like to see become reality. Let’s just say my Fermentation Magic 8 Ball says, “See
Vinifera in Florida?
MEMBERS ONLYI would be very cautious (or at least very realistic) about buying Vitis vinifera vines for your Florida vineyard. Most states in the country have their own burgeoning vineyard and winery region but there is a reason America’s “wine country” flourishes in places like Napa, California, and not Naples, Florida. It can be summed up
Post-Fermentation Acid Adjustments
FREEI would only adjust with tartaric acid, and not an “acid blend” that contains either malic or citric acids. Both of the latter can be fermented by organisms in the bottle. On
The Telling Room
MEMBERS ONLYAn excerpt from Michael Paterniti’s new book THE TELLING ROOM: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese.
Choosing Corks and Wine Closures
MEMBERS ONLYAs I walked about the roomful of wine following April’s WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition judging, I was reminded of how little thought is given to closures. Winemaking problems notwithstanding, this could confirm the fact that I found far too many wines to be oxidized. There were recycled screw caps, both aluminum from wine bottles
Winemaking by the Numbers
FREEThere are lots of ways to help winemakers learn or refine their craft. Most of those involve lists of equipment and supplies, along with step-by-step or time-based instructions for what to do
White Wine Skin Contact
FREEToday’s proposed violation takes on one of the dominant conventions of modern white winemaking: no skin contact.
Wines Two Ways: Oaked and Unoaked
MEMBERS ONLYTo Oak, or not to Oak, a phrase I took from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and changed the words around a little. But going a step further and delving into the tools that winemaker’s have in their hip pocket, are all the tools necessary? Some winemakers think they have to follow a certain recipe or protocol
2013 WineMaker International Wine Competition Results
FREE4,564 entries 923 wine flights 2,282 total judging hours 50 American states 8 Canadian provinces 9 Countries From April 19 to 21, 2013, a record total of 4,564 different wines were judged
Maceration Tips and Techniques
MEMBERS ONLY“Maceration,” says the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is to “soften by soaking.” In red winemaking it is so much more! Indeed, maceration may be viewed as the very essence of what distinguishes the making of red wine from that of white wine. With very few minor exceptions, all grapes have colorless pulp. To achieve the color,
Making Country Wine from Berries
MEMBERS ONLYSummer is the time for berries, and that means berry wines. Loaded with flavor and unique aromas, chilled berry wines on warm summer afternoons lend credence to the lyrics, “It’s summertime, and the living is easy . . .” Here are 15 summer berries suitable for wine that you can ferment as soon as the
Pinot Gris/Grigio The name says it all, or does it?
MEMBERS ONLYUnknown to the science at the time, these genetic mutations were first noticed hundreds of years ago in Burgundy, France, where the mutants grew side by side, and sometimes within the same plant as Pinot Noir.
Perfecting Pyment
MEMBERS ONLYCongrats for breaking out of the mold and taking it upon yourself to adapt a recipe to your own preferences! I always love it when readers, and my own winemaking buddies, take what they know or have done, and give it a good tweak. Pyment, or a fermented beverage made with both grape sugars and
Urban Winemaking: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYMaking wine away from winemaking regions is becoming more popular. As these pros will tell you, urban winemaking comes with unique benefits and challenges. Jared Brandt and his wife, Tracey, are the owners and winemakers of Donkey and Goat in Berkeley, California. The Brandts craft their natural wines from Rhône varietals, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir
Preparing Country Fruit
FREEHow should fruit be prepared before using it to make country wines? Let’s have a look…
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
