Techniques

While it sometimes gets a bad rap because too much oxygen can destroy a wine, oxygen is also very important to the winemaking process. Learn the six ways to use oxygen to your wine’s benefit.

Many homebrewers of beer are unknowingly very familiar with the Charmat method to carbonate wine. If you are unfamiliar with this easy, albeit more equipment-heavy, process to produce bubbly wines, Bob Peak explains the technique.

Wine blends are most often created after fermenting each variety
separately. However, that isn’t the only way to do it. Some wine-makers choose to co-ferment certain varieties together, believing this approach adds to the complexity of the resulting wine. Get tips on co-fermentation from three pros who endorse the benefits.

In contemporary times beer and soft drinks have become the standard beverages to find on draft at bars and restaurants, but that is changing as wine-on-draft is a growing trend. Learn how you too can enjoy having both still and sparkling wines at home served on your own draft system.

Making red wine from hybrid grapes can sometimes be a challenge, but the rewards are also tremendous. The first steps? Forget what you know about making wine from vinifera grapes and embrace the unique characteristics hybrids often have.

If you’re a beginner planning on making a batch of red wine, here are some keys components to hone in on before you dive in.

If you are a winemaker looking to boost your wine’s quality, then tracking pH is a must. Bob Peak introduces the chemistry behind the numbers we obtain and how to use them to our advantage.

Chaptalization is the act of adding sugar to juice or must in order to increase alcohol content post-fermentation. Learn the basics of this technique.

While haze can sometimes just be aesthetically off-putting and not a true flaw, it’s something many winemakers like to avoid. Get the scoop on reducing haze and other benefits, as well as drawbacks, that come with the use of fining agents.

Commercial producers of ice wines and ice ciders are highly regulated in their production, but hobby wine and cidermakers don’t need to abide by those rules. Learn some creative ways to produce these coveted, sweet sippers.

Fall is here and there is an abundance of apples available and ready to be fermented. Three experts share advice for three different types of hard ciders (fruited, spiced, and hopped) so that you can try something different this year.

Tannins are a big piece of the large puzzle when balancing many styles of wine. It’s important to understand ways to increase or decrease their presence when that balance leans too heavily in one direction or the other.

Learn about the lees that we find in wine and how we can use them to our advantage.

Do you whole-cluster press? Separate free-run juice and press fractions? Maximize juice collection through high pressure? There are a lot of decisions to make while pressing that will have a big impact on the final outcome of your wine. We put the squeeze on three pro winemakers to share their pressing tips.

Wine was made for millennia with little intervention from humans. But let’s be honest, we have no idea how those wines tasted. Today we know that yeast create the wine and keeping them happy is crucial for producing good wine. Learn how nitrogen plays a pivotal role.

Why make harvest/crush day more stressful than it needs to be? With a solid game plan things should run smoothly. One of the best ways to get all your ducks in a row is to create a checklist so that no small details are overlooked.

As a home winemaker, you’ve likely spent years taking every precaution at your disposal to assure that your juice does not oxidize prior to fermentation. However, there are a small-yet-growing number of winemakers out there who intentionally oxidize their juice with an aim to reduce phenol content. The technique is called hyperoxidation, and it is only for the brave.

For anyone who plans on creating a small-to-moderate-sized backyard vineyard, this column should be mandatory reading. Because the best advice one can receive is to spend a lot of extra time in the planning stage, which will save an exponential amount of time later.

There is no denying that oak alternatives are a lot gentler on the wallet and on the environment. Bob Peak takes a spin through oak chemistry, available options, and techniques to incorporate them to elevate your wines.

Approaching food-wine pairings can be complex given the nearly endless options available . . . but there is a science to it. Learn the basics to matching a wine with a food course to impress even the sticklers in the group.

When you want to make wines from grapes but it isn’t harvest season, one option home winemakers have is purchasing buckets of frozen must or juice. Three industry experts share their coolest tips.

If you’ve got a wine aging in your cellar you would like unbiased, expert opinions on, then entering it in a competition for judging is one of the best options. Get some pointers for getting the best feedback.

The reader letters have been piling up, so Wes decides it’s come that time again to pick up the pen and share some of the most useful questions (and his answers) that readers have sent to him over the past year regarding backyard viticulture.

What good is having a thermometer or titration kit if the numbers you are getting from them are off? Make sure you are properly calibrating all your wine testing equipment.

Hybrid grapes pose certain challenges to winemakers including higher acidity and lower tannins. Three cool-climate winemakers share their advice to create a balanced wine from these grapes.