Date: Aug-Sep 2014
Alternative Sweeteners, Pomace Compost, and Stuck Fermentations: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYQI grow and make Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in southwest Idaho. The season is intense but short. In order to reach decent ripeness (~25 °Brix), I have been growing with a very
Stuck Fermentations
MEMBERS ONLYBefore you start going crazy with a fermentation restart protocol, are you sure that it is really stuck? The first thing that I would advise you to do is to taste and
Pomace Compost
FREEPomace, which is the skins, seeds and stems leftover from wine processing and pressing, can indeed be returned to the field as a soil amendment. You deposit it in a thin layer
Alternative Sweeteners, Pomace Compost, and Stuck Fermentations
MEMBERS ONLYIf you add some kind of sweetener that is fermentable (table sugar, grape concentrate, maple syrup, honey, etc.) you risk an uncontrolled re-fermentation in the bottle, which is never fun.
Momentum
MEMBERS ONLYHope, strength and faith are the story behind Bob and Sonya Evanosky’s Momentum wine label.
Fermentation Troubleshooting with Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYThe failure rate of wine made from kits is very low. Looking back at my database for the last 14 years and eliminating the weirder stuff (you simply would not believe how
Impact of Barrel Kinetics and Dynamics on Wine
MEMBERS ONLYOak barrels have long been used primarily for aging red wines but also to shape the style of certain white varietals, such as Chardonnay, into fuller-bodied wines. Oak wood imparts what is
Back Sweetening Wine Techniques
MEMBERS ONLYIn ancient Greece and Rome, honey was sometimes stirred into wine just before serving. Maybe they just liked the taste of honey. More likely, though, the sweetness of the honey corrected some
Chaptalization and Fermentation
MEMBERS ONLY“Commercially, winemakers encounter several scenarios in which they practice sugar addition. Typically, winemaking laws allow chaptalization in jurisdictions that frequently experience difficulty getting grapes ripe or in places where low-sugar grapes may
Making Your First Wine
FREEfirst wine, beginner winemaking
Using Variable Volume Wine Tanks
MEMBERS ONLYOver the past few years I have made larger and larger batches of wine, and as a result the number of carboys I use has really added up. Each year I try
Kegging Your Wine
FREEAs the penultimate step in winemaking, bottling can be one of the most exciting parts of the process. Crushing, pressing, fermenting, racking, clarifying, adjusting and weeks and months of waiting all come
Muscadine: A taste of the South
MEMBERS ONLYMuscadine is a grape variety from the South that is used in many culinary recipes, but also makes a fine wine.
Alternative Sweeteners
MEMBERS ONLYI hear you on the high pH/high TA unbalanced wine issue. I myself have dealt with some vineyards and some wine lots where I have had to add so much tartaric to
Whole Cluster Pressing: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYWhole cluster pressing (foregoing the step of crushing and destemming the grapes) is most often done to make high-end white wines. The technique creates a more delicate and less astringent wine by
Bottling Your First Batch
FREEAn introduction into bottling your first batch of wine.