Date: Feb-Mar 2012

Over the years I have accumulated lots of pieces of fairly delicate labware to perform a number of winemaking tests. After recently remodeling my garage winery with some cast off kitchen cabinets

This cooling setup keeps wine must within just a few degrees of target temperatures.

Remember, every time you open your barrel, you introduce air and potentially some undesirable spoilage organisms.

A reader starts a vineyard in New England. “It is great to wake up in the morning, make a cup of coffee and walk out to the vineyard to check on the vines, training off shoots as I go along.”

This past year brought challenges and rewards for home vineyardists — and also a lot of questions for our vineyard expert Wes Hagen.

Indeed, for 4–6 months of the year, the frigid and snowy landscape hardly seems like a great place to plant a vineyard. Temperatures in January and February drop sufficiently low to kill

Pinotage is the most recognized — though not the most widely grown — South African red wine grape.

Thanks for clarifying your question a little bit. I am glad to hear you regularly top off your barrels, it’s a practice all of us need to do. Alcohol and water definitely

In this article, Michael Larner discusses the wines of the Rhône region of France, and one of the most important winemaking parts of Rhône winemaking is blending. Learn about the basics of

I certainly wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater or the crush equipment out with the sanitizing solution in this case. A little accumulated mold on a wooden basket press or

So sorry to hear you had a bad year with the powdery mildew. Many growers in California were challenged by 2011, as the cooler weather left lots of us battling botrytis, rot

Maybe you made a truly spectacular batch of Cabernet Sauvignon two years ago and haven’t been able to make another like it since and can’t figure out why. Maybe you’ve been making

Running up a 12-inch (30-cm) wide, rock, one-sided staircase with no handrails from one terrace to another, all more than 30% sloped, I pause to capture my balance, which has now shifted behind

If you are thinking about taking your amateur winemaking to a more professional level, it might be time to consider taking some winemaking classes. In this issue, two wine school instructors discuss some tips for finding your way in winemaking school.

If your primary fermentation (sugar to alcohol) is complete you shouldn’t have to add any potassium sorbate to your wine. In fact, adding sorbate to wine after performing malolactic fermentation (ML) can

A good winemaker understands not only his or her grapes and where and how they are grown, but also his or her techniques of elaboration and the greater context of the wine