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Techniques

Managing Acid in Fruit Wines

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Grapes want to be wine. That may be oversimplified, but the fact is that the vast majority of commercial wines — and most homemade wines — use winegrapes as their base. The balance of flavors, aromas, sugar and acid that naturally occurs in grapes is unmatched by any other fruit for the direct production of

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Winemaking From Frozen Must

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It seems a short time ago when, if you wanted to make wine, you waited for the fall harvest season when grapes would start arriving from the West Coast. Everyone would be

Making the Most of Your Winery Visit

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 Heading to wine country is a field trip for adults. You’ve got beautiful scenery, interesting people, new beverages to enjoy and an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of your everyday life. But how do you make the most of your winery field trip? As a winemaker, you have insight into the

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Quick Drinking Wine Kits

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In this article I’ll be discussing “vinfanticide,” which is wines to drink on bottling day (or before). And in the next issue I’ll cover super-early drinking wines (under three months of age). I know that there are a few kit winemakers reading this article who just got a shocked look on their face: “You can

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To Malo Or Not To Malo?

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Many home winemakers are uncertain on whether or not to have their wines go through malolactic fermentation. This is not surprising since there is no “one size fits all” approach to the

Cool Fermentations

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Want to preserve the delicate aromas in your white wines? Learn these hot tips for running a cool fermentation.

Award-Winning Red Winemakers Roundtable

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What does it take to make world-class wine at home? Over the years since WineMaker started hosting the WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition, many readers have written in asking variations on that

Enjoying Dessert Wine Kits

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Drinking Port To my palate, Port is toothsome — it somehow seems to satisfy and delight all on its own. Back when I smoked a pipe (and nothing looks dopier than someone under the age of 40 smoking a pipe, let me tell you) I thought it was the perfect accompaniment. Not that I’m recommending

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Choosing A Wine Yeast Strain

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Yeast selection is one of the most important winemaking decisions as the chosen yeast strain is, to a large extent, what shapes the wine, influences organoleptic (sensory) qualities, and reduces the risk

Tannin Chemistry

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Soft, silky, velvety, youthful, puckery, aggressive, harsh, bitter, astringent: These are all adjectives used in winespeak to describe the many taste sensations from tannins in red wines. Learn about the science behind them

Oak Barrel Chemistry

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The benefits of fermenting or aging wine in toasted oak barrels are indisputable and unmatched by any other type of wood. Not only do oak compounds impart aromas and flavors as well

Cold Soaking: Tips from the Pros

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Melissa Burr, Winemaker at Stoller Vineyards in Dayton, Oregon. Melissa was raised in the Willamette Valley and, after completing her BS degree, studied winemaking at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, and

Cabernet Sauvignon – Syrah Wine Blends

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  Home winemakers often resort to a little blending to improve their wines — to add a little more body, tweak the acid balance or deepen the color, or just because it takes one more gallon of something to fill that barrel. But many of the world’s great wines, and maybe even a higher percentage

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Sparkling Wine From Kits

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 Ahh, glorious Champagne: our companion at celebrations and important events, it christens our ships, welcomes our New Year, and gently helps the caviar and oysters along the path to culinary nirvana. Sparkling wine has no peer, and you can make it at home if you’ve got a little adventure in your soul and a DIY

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Dollars and Sense: Tips from the Pros

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Home winemakers get into the hobby for a number of reasons, including making high quality wine for less money. But even though making your own wine can sometimes be an economical choice, there are additional ways to save money. This issue, three home winemaking retailers discuss how to save money by planning ahead, avoiding waste

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The Home Wine Laboratory

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 It is said that fine winemaking begins in the vineyard, but I’ve found that winemaking is an unending process, starting with the grapes and continuing to evolve once bottled. Wine is a

Using Enzymes: Tips from the Pros

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 Ben Mayo, Winemaker at Eberle Winery in Paso Robles, California. Ben has worked with Eberle for nearly ten years. He first joined as a cellar worker, later graduating to Assistant Winemaker and is currently a partner. He is a graduate of UC-Santa Cruz and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. At Eberle, I use Scott Laboratories

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The Sensorial Profile: Techniques

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This is the time of year — at least for those making wine from grapes —when you get to taste and assess wines from this past vintage to determine how good these have turned out and what “tweaking” they require, if any. And if you are making wine from kits, this is a good time

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Maintaining fermentation temperatures: Wine Kits

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When Ray Charles and Betty Carter sang the definitive version of Frank Loesser’s song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” it’s a pretty sure bet that home winemaking was the last thing on their minds. It’s a pity, because temperature control for kit winemaking is deucedly important, but it’s one of those things that never gets the

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Sparkling Icewine: Techniques

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I must confess my love for two types of wines: delectable icewine and refreshing sparkling wine, or bubbly, as it is more affectionately known. So when the wine industry in Niagara (Ontario), the world capital of icewine, first fused these two styles by creating sparkling icewine, I became doubly ecstatic. What better creation than to

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Ten Tips for Kit Winemaking

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Decalogue is Latin for “ten writings” and the most common use of the word is to refer to the ten commandments of the Judeo-Christian tradition. While this column isn’t written in stone (and certainly not by the light of a burning bush) the tenth anniversary of WineMaker is an excellent time to weigh in with

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The First Ten Years: Tips from the Pros

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Does a decade make a difference? We think so! As part of our anniversary celebration, we reached out to three West Coast wine professionals that are also celebrating their first ten years for some advice that they have learned along the way. Joanne Dunham, co-owner of Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla, Washington. Joanne, her husband

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10 Winemaking Techniques You Should Know

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Q. What is the difference between good and superlative wines? A. The WOW! factor. A good wine offers everything that the varietal or style is meant to provide. While it can provide

10 Tips for Better Wine

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Like so many things, you get two winemakers together, you get three different opinions. But that’s probably because there seems to be nothing a professional winemaker loves to do more than talk about making wine. “That’s one thing that’s unusual about the wine industry,” said Chris Dearden, general manager and winemaker at Benessere, in St.

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Myth Busting

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Every area of human endeavor has its own legacy of mythopoeia (Mythmaking), where stories accrete around the changing character of human action and accumulated knowledge. Myths and stories are the way human