Date: Aug-Sep 2019
Live Chat with José Pizarro
MEMBERS ONLYLive Chat with José Pizarro, which took place on September 18, 2019.
Fresh Grape Supplier Directory
FREELooking for fresh grapes this harvest season? Here is a list of select fresh grape vendors you can purchase grapes from.
Live Chat with Christina Musto
MEMBERS ONLYLive Chat with Christina Musto, which took place on August 14, 2019.
2019 WineMaker Conference Recap
FREEHundreds of hobby winemakers came to Traverse City, Michigan from May 16 to 19 for our 12th annual WineMaker Magazine Conference. The conference featured local professional Northern Michigan winemakers, WineMaker writers, industry
Design a Wine Cellar
MEMBERS ONLYAlthough most bottles of wine you purchase in the store are sold ready-to-drink, wines made with certain grapes can and will improve with age. That’s not the case for home winemakers, whose freshly bottled wines often require a minimum of a few months of bottle aging for white wines, and a year or more for
At Home in the Wine Lab
MEMBERS ONLYOver the course of an individual’s early experiences as a home winemaker, one will have a few pitfalls and batches that may not be “quite right.” Wines may be perceived as out of balance or to have mild flaws. Many of these balance and flaw issues can be addressed or avoided with some simple lab
2019 WineMaker Magazine International Amateur Wine Competition Recap
FREEFrom April 12 to 14, 2019, a total of 2,305 different wines were judged at the Grand Summit Lodge and Conference Center at Mount Snow Resort in West Dover, Vermont. This year’s
Benefit From Judge Feedback
FREEWhy do we subject our wines to competitions? Is it for the professional feedback? Is it for the tasting notes? Is it for the bragging rights? Regardless of your reason to enter
Chateau Latif Vineyard: An oasis on Manhattan’s Upper East Side
MEMBERS ONLYA vineyard located in the middle of Manhattan? We had to investigate. Learn about Latif Jiji and the unique vineyard that he planted and has managed now for 42 years in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Extraction Decisions: Keying into the details of maceration
MEMBERS ONLYWith harvest just around the corner, it’s time to study up on your extraction plan for this year’s grapes. Alex Russan looks at some of the key decisions that winemakers need to make after the grapes are crushed and methods to get them to their goal.
Visualize Sensory Evaluation: Utilizing spider charts to compare wines
MEMBERS ONLYWinemakers new and experienced will often compare different wines and make mental notes about the experience. For those that want to improve upon their wines, spider charts offer an easy-to-visualize evaluation of several sensory variables.
Getting Hardcore with Apples
FREEGet some basic pointers for making hard cider or apple wine.
Get groovy with Grüner Veltliner
MEMBERS ONLYTowards the end of the fall 2018 harvest I was looking for a little respite in my calendar, and I came across an appointment scheduled for a Friday night in late November simply titled “Grüner Tasting.” It piqued my interest and I got a little excited about it but didn’t have a clue how it
Knocking Down Rot On Grapes
MEMBERS ONLYThat’s a great question as we approach the harvest season. Though I don’t expect 2019 harvest to be like 2011 or 1998, many of us all over the country, from Oregon to Pennsylvania, will have to deal with some kind of rot or Botrytis close to harvest time. When I’m potentially faced with it, I
Decanting Advice
FREEThose are a great couple of questions. Decanting, or the pouring of a wine out of its bottle into another, larger container (usually made of clear glass or crystal), is something that
Affects of Acid
MEMBERS ONLYIn general, I think of how TA (titratable, or total acidity) and pH impact flavor and mouthfeel in this simple (and yes, perhaps simplistic) way: TA determines how tart or sour a wine tastes while pH points to how a wine feels in the mouth. TA and pH typically won’t change in the bottle over
Determining A Wine’s Ageability
FREEI’ll answer your last questions first and then give you my thoughts on the age-worthiness of your wine. RS (residual sugar) “Dry” (no sugar remaining) is usually considered 0.2% or less (2
Determining Ageability, Wine Chemistry, Decanting Advice, and Knocking Down Rot
MEMBERS ONLYQI’ve got a red Bordeaux-style blend with the following stats: Aged 28 months in French and American oak, with these numbers: Alcohol — 13.8%; Free SO2 — 37 mg/L; Total SO2 — 250 mg/L; Molecular SO2 — 0.64 mg/L; Residual Sugar — 0.8 g/L; Malic Acid — 0 g/L; pH — 3.57; Titratable Acidity —
Best of Show Tips
MEMBERS ONLYWhile none of the three panelists for this “Tips from the Pros” column are actually pros, their knowledge is second to none. We’ve accumulated three “Best of Show” winners from the 2019 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition to share their medal-winning advice. Kathleen Ondrus, Winemaker of the Year and Grand Champion Wine at the WineMaker