Date: Fall 1999
Grape requirements, bentonite and yellow ring: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYQHow many pounds of grapes will make five gallons (19 L) of wine? Are there guidelines for reds and whites and varieties within each of those groups? How much does vintage affect the amount required? James Freidan Akron, Ohio AYou’ll need about 85 to 90 pounds (39 to 41 kg) of fresh grapes (still on
Adding Oak: Tips from the Pros
FREEWinemaker John Fletcher of Hillside Estate Winery in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada offers his thoughts on adding oak to your wine: Oaking Hillside Wines Many of the Hillside Estate
Build Your Own Garage Wine Cellar
FREEI have been making wine for about 27 years starting with a small winemaking kit I received as a Christmas gift. I had an interest long before that time as I had
Create Your Own Great Labels
MEMBERS ONLYLabels are an extension of your personality; they mirror the winemaker’s soul. The wine in the bottle is the culmination of months, sometimes years of effort. Labeling your wine can further express your effort and pride. Your individual taste and purpose, along with a few key guidelines, are the essential factors in designing a label.
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MEMBERS ONLYJudging is highly subjective, and there are as many methods of evaluating wines as there are tasters. That’s a good thing. If wines could be rated objectively, we’d all be buying Microsoft Cabernet. The following is my own approach to evaluating Cabernet at Kathryn Kennedy Winery in Saratoga, Calif., where I have been winemaker since
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MEMBERS ONLYIs there a beverage that conjures up more images than mead? Whether you associate it with Druids, pre-Roman civilizations of central Europe, Vikings and Teutonic raiders, Celts ancient or modern, it is impossible to deny the hold that mead has always had on the imagination of Western civilization. It probably was mead that Homer and
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MEMBERS ONLYAh, another summer season come and gone. The family thought your two-year old Chardonnay was great at cousin Bob’s wedding dinner, and the after-dinner crowd at the late summer supper on the deck loved your port-style Barbera. In fact they were still smacking their lips long after the dessert dishes were cleared away and demanded
The Sweet Rewards of Dessert Wines
MEMBERS ONLYClassic dessert wines are wonderful, complex, and delicious beverages. The range of dessert wines is considerable and growing. With today’s high-quality kits, you can make terrific dessert wine at home and, with a little tweaking, give the finished product a unique touch. Dessert wines don’t always have a great reputation in popular wine culture, where
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FREEIt’s hard to dispute that winemaking is an art. And it’s no surprise that winemakers sometimes act like artists. Now imagine, if you will, a room full of artists who meet to
How many pounds of grapes will make five gallons (19 L) of wine? Are there guidelines for reds and whites and varieties within each of those groups?
FREEYou’ll need about 85 to 90 pounds (39 to 41 kg) of fresh grapes (still on their stems) to make five gallons of wine. It will start off at about 2.5 lug
I’ve heard homemade wines go bad after two years. What causes that and how can I prevent it?
FREEAs Miss Manners would say, “Do not despair, gentle reader.” It is absolutely a falsehood that homemade wine “goes bad” after two years. It has just as much potential for staying power
There is a yellow ring around the top of the wine in my carboy, but the wine tastes and smells fine. What’s with the yellow ring?
MEMBERS ONLYDear Wine Wizard, My partners and I, for the first time, bought Merlot grapes last year. We followed our normal procedure, which we have been using for the past five years for the red grapes we used, including Zinfandel, Barbara and Carignan. We plucked about 75 percent of the grapes off the stems prior to