Date: Feb-Mar 2016
Moldy Odor In My Wines, Calculating Molecular SO2, Brown (Red) Wine
MEMBERS ONLYTCA, or the “corked” off-aroma, is caused by ambient molds interacting with a chlorine molecule of some kind, usually from domestic water supply.
Stock Your Wine Cellar
MEMBERS ONLYA home winemaker offers tips on how to keep your wine cellar stocked with a variety of wines.
Split Batch Wine Kit Experiments
MEMBERS ONLYWhen we tackle a big project it isn’t the immediate effort that pays off, but all of our work combined into one glorious enterprise. It’s the same with winemaking: A single effort to make better wine isn’t likely to pay big dividends, but persisting on a path of careful repeated efforts will yield big gains.
Oxygen Reduction in Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYOxidation gets a lot of attention in winemaking — and it should! WineMaker magazine has covered oxidation issues from several different angles over the past few years. While some presence of oxygen in wine contributes positive effects, most of the time the home winemaker is excluding oxygen to avoid the browning, aldehyde formation, and spoilage
Wine To Go Layout
MEMBERS ONLYBuild your own wine carrying case to keep your bottles safe during travel.
Super Blends
MEMBERS ONLYOne group of internationally famous wines — the Super Tuscans — has come to represent revolutionary change in the wine world in the last few decades. After long-held traditional principles and practices controlled European winemaking for decades (or centuries), some Italian winemakers in the Tuscany region deliberately broke from tradition and began making new blends.
Cooking With Wine
MEMBERS ONLYYour homemade wine doesn’t have to be simply for the wine glass – it can also be a part of the food on your table! Check out three recipes for a French-inspired feast that count wine among the ingredients.
10 Tips for Taking stock in Your Home Winery
MEMBERS ONLYTake advantage of the quieter moments in your home winery to take a deep breath and regroup. Four veteran winemakers share tips for cleaning, organizing, restocking, and reviewing the past year’s winemaking, and planning for the coming vintage.
The Many Shades of Muscat
MEMBERS ONLYMuscat is a complex family of grapes with a distinctive aroma tying them all together. There are hundreds of Muscat varieties, both white and red, which are used to make all styles of wine.
Moldy Odor In My Wines
MEMBERS ONLYWould you be surprised to know that you may be doing absolutely nothing wrong? Even though you tried to sanitize your corks (assuming you are using natural corks and not artificial corks) by soaking in a sulfite solution before bottling, it’s almost impossible to completely eradicate all of the organisms that could cause TCA (trichloroanisole)
Calculating Molecular SO2
MEMBERS ONLYSulfur dioxide, or SO2, has many benefits in winemaking and has been added to wine for centuries to act as a preservative. When you add SO2 to your wine, part of it will bind up with other wine components like acetaldehydes, polyphenols, and weakly, to sugars (contributing to “total SO2”) and some will remain free
Wine Blending: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYVarietal wines are great, but there is only so much that can be done when working with a single grape variety. To create a truly complex wine, try blending multiple varieties that complement each other. Winemaker: Kimberlee Nicholls, Markham Cellars, Napa Valley, California True blends are very challenging to create. I approach blending like cooking; sometimes
Design a Great Home Wine Label
FREEYou are already proud of the wine you made, but when it comes time to share or gift your wine, you want to be proud of the packaging too. Use these tips from label design pros to get you started.
Mastering Wine Acid Balance
MEMBERS ONLYSometimes the acidity of your grapes, juice, or wine will need to be adjusted. Learn some of the finer details surrounding how, and when, to make those acid adjustments to your wine.
Brown (Instead of Red) Wine
MEMBERS ONLYThere’s the old saw about the sow’s ear and the silk purse. It reminds me of my old adage of “never blend a loser,” which admonishes readers against blending bad wine into good. It improves the bad wine at the detriment to the whole blend. That’s too bad your grapes were sub-optimal and absolutely you