Techniques

Making wine away from winemaking regions is becoming more popular. As these pros will tell you, urban winemaking comes with unique benefits and challenges. Jared Brandt and his wife, Tracey, are the

You want to add extra body and mouthfeel to your wines, or perhaps enhance those buttery or yeasty aromas and flavors in your barrel-fermented Chardonnay? Or maybe even round out those sharp

Developed commercially 50 years ago, Chambourcin is a versatile grape that is most prevalently grown in the Mid-Atlantic. Producing deep red colors and strong aromas, Chambourcin grapes are used either to stand-alone

“Carignane and goat cheese,” said Tony Ross, wine educator at Passalacqua Winery near Healdsburg, California. During a judging session for a local home wine competition, Tony and I were on the same

Home Winemakers, Let’s Take a Vote: Those of you who put your wines through malolactic fermentation only after the alcoholic fermentation is complete, raise your hands. Now those of you who do

Over 50 experienced judges evaluated a total of 2,725 wine kit entries as part of the 2013 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition. This large collection of kit entries was sent into the

There is nothing as refreshing and enjoyable as a chilled bottle of mousseux (foamy), or fine bubbly. No longer are sparkling wines simply uncorked to celebrate a new year or a kid’s

The name Meritage is a blend of the words merit and heritage (and pronounced to rhyme with the latter). But beyond a commitment to using the same grapes as those used in

These three pros offer up tips to make your own sparkling wine at home. Steve DiFrancesco is the Winemaker for Glenora Wine Cellars in Dundee, New York. If you’re going for a

I had a very interesting conversation with a couple of veteran winemakers at a guided wine tasting I conducted this fall. Together, they had made dozens of batches of wine, were using

Did you ever create a wine that seemed more viscous than your typical wine, or which may have exhibited heavier fruity odors, or perhaps a solvent-like smell? The culprits may well be

Fining of wine is the addition of one substance to remove another. It is a diverse subject with several classes of materials involved in its use and lots of different intended outcomes.

I learned quickly during my early days of cleaning up after myself in the winery that a carboy brush is designed to spackle the walls, surrounding cabinets and the user with undesirable

We have had many customers at Blichmann Engineering ask about using our fermenters for winemaking, which is why I decided that I needed to learn more about making wine. My first batch

Pruning is the removal of portions of the vine. Training is the arrangement of the vine parts both immediately after pruning and as the vine grows. The trellis is the physical structure

Sangiovese is primarily associated with wines from Italy, especially from the Tuscany region. However, there are also a number of vineyards in the New World growing Sangiovese. The 2012 California Grape Crush

Mineral deficiencies or excesses can become sources of frustration for amateur winemakers because minerals, metals, and other ionic substances cannot be easily measured and their role in biochemical and chemical reactions can be quite complex. So where do these substances come from and how can they be best managed in a home winery?

Start with the grapes. Whether you make wine at home from fresh grapes, juice, or frozen must, there are many influences over the quality and character of your wine. Grape variety itself

In the life of the amateur winemaker, there may come a time when the idea of starting a commercial winery pops up. Making wine can be a gratifying and engaging career, so

If you are of the opinion that yeast selection does not matter and that the only role of yeast is to convert sugar into ethyl alcohol (ethanol), you may have been missing

Pinot Grigio is everywhere, flooding every supermarket wine aisle and all over the wine lists at restaurants that don’t give much thought to their wine lists. It’s the single biggest (by volume)

There is no better way to get to know a wine region than paying a visit and chatting up the winery management and their staff. It is then that you can learn

To make good wine one must understand what good wine is and, alternatively, understand and be able to detect wine faults. Anyone can learn to evaluate wine, and as a winemaker it

“Blending is a natural procedure, honest, necessary, and in accordance with historical events.” With that quote, eminent wine authority Emile Peynaud gives us permission to play with our wines. While he was

The aromatic calculus for whites differs from that for reds, and aromatics in young wines are a world apart from the aromatics of well-aged wines. There are lots of places where you can do things in your home winery to amplify aroma, which are also the same places you can let them slip away.