Techniques
Yeast Impact on Wine Aroma and Flavor
FREEIf 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
Perfecting Pinot Grigio
MEMBERS ONLYPinot 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) import category into the US. The annual crop in California has increased by 1000 percent in the last decade, positioning it second only
Cool Climate Winemaking Tips from Ontario
MEMBERS ONLYThere 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 more about the hard work and dedication that goes into making great wine. I recently visited Prince Edward County (PEC) in Ontario, Canada
Wine Evaluation: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYTo 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 is critical to be able to identify wine faults. If you want to learn where to begin, taking tips from these pros is
Blending Fruit and Grape Wines
MEMBERS ONLY“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 addressing grape wine in his classic Knowing and Making Wine, I think his sentiment applies even more to the wide, wonderful world of
Maximize Wine Aromatics
MEMBERS ONLYGetting and keeping attractive aromatics is a major goal of winemaking, home or commercial, and it isn’t easy. It is a goal and a concern at every step along the way, from harvest to bottle aging; it’s not something you do all at once, like tannin extraction during fermentation. The aromatic calculus for whites differs
Small Batch Winemaking Techniques
MEMBERS ONLYMaking wine in small batches, usually from 3 to 5 liters (3 to 5 quarts), is both easier and at the same time more exacting than making wine in much larger batches. Usually the province of country (non-vinifera) wines, Vitis vinifera grapes may also be made in small batches for the harvest of a single
Big Batch Winemaking Techniques
MEMBERS ONLYAre you ready to move up from small batches of wine? In this article we are going to discuss the specifics of making “big” batches of wine — that is, 10 gallons (38 L) or more. This is a great follow-up to my recent article on setting up your home winery (in the February-March 2014
Top 10 Winemaking Myths
MEMBERS ONLYAs in many fields — health promoting and weight-loss diets come to mind — that have grown from unfounded beliefs and around traditions, with newfound scientific knowledge proving or disproving long-held theories, the field of wine and winemaking has its share of myths, misconceptions and sheer quackery. To the uninitiated, enophiles can seem snobbish, often
Organic Grape Growing: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYGrowing grapes organically, like any other crop, is often more work than using synthetic fertilizers, solutions and sprays. But in the end, many winemakers who embrace organic growing believe the resulting wines display the purity of the fruit the way that Mother Nature intended. Joy Andersen is a pioneer of the modern-day Washington State wine
Fermentation Troubleshooting with Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYThe failure rate of wine made from kits is very low. Looking back at my database for the last 14 years and eliminating the weirder stuff (you simply would not believe how many pets find their way into fermenting vessels) it turns out that if you follow the instructions closely and have generally sound sanitation
Impact of Barrel Kinetics and Dynamics on Wine
MEMBERS ONLYOak barrels have long been used primarily for aging red wines but also to shape the style of certain white varietals, such as Chardonnay, into fuller-bodied wines. Oak wood imparts what is generally referred to as toasted-oak aromas and flavors, but more specifically, these include a varied set of volatile compounds, from aldehydes to oak
Back Sweetening Wine Techniques
MEMBERS ONLYIn ancient Greece and Rome, honey was sometimes stirred into wine just before serving. Maybe they just liked the taste of honey. More likely, though, the sweetness of the honey corrected some fault of bitterness or sourness. It might have enhanced fruitiness or rounded out mouthfeel. Honey, sugar, or other sweeteners can still make those
Chaptalization and Fermentation
MEMBERS ONLYJean-Antoine Chaptal lacked one major benefit we enjoy today: The work in microbiology by Louis Pasteur. (Chaptal lived from 1756 to 1832 and Pasteur lived from 1822 to 1895.) Chaptal was, nonetheless, a brilliant chemist in his era and he introduced many improvements to industrial processes over the course of his lifetime. The one for
Making Your First Wine
FREEfirst wine, beginner winemaking
Using Variable Volume Wine Tanks
MEMBERS ONLYOver the past few years I have made larger and larger batches of wine, and as a result the number of carboys I use has really added up. Each year I try to make improvements to my home winery, and being a total wine equipment nerd variable capacity stainless steel tanks were an obvious upgrade
Kegging Your Wine
FREEWhile kegged wine has become fairly common in some bars, home winemakers still traditionally bottle. Learn some of the basics to kegging your wine.
Whole Cluster Pressing: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYWhole cluster pressing (foregoing the step of crushing and destemming the grapes) is most often done to make high-end white wines. The technique creates a more delicate and less astringent wine by reducing the contact time with the stems and skins. Jason Burrus is the Winemaker for Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg, Virginia. He has a
Gum Arabic: Winemaking’s Secret Weapon
FREEGum arabic can do so many great things for your wines, from improving mouthfeel, making a thin wine taste fuller bodied, rounding out rough edges of grape tannins, increasing persistence of bubbles
Making Fortified Wine
MEMBERS ONLYThe word “fortified” is prohibited on commercial wine labels in the United States. Yet we are surrounded by a fascinating array of fortified wines when we visit a good wine shop. Fortified wines are simply those to which distilled spirits have been added to raise the final alcohol level. Some sweet dessert wines, like late
The Relationship of pH and Acid in Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYHome winemakers know pH and acid are related when they make wine. Beyond that, the details sometimes get a little fuzzy. Shedding some light on how these important parameters are — and are not — linked to one another may help make better winemaking decisions. There are theoretical considerations from organic chemistry and laboratory analysis,
Make Your Own Red Wine Aroma Sensory Kit
MEMBERS ONLYImprove your ability to pick out aromas in a glass of wine with the use of an aroma kit. There are many wine aroma kits available but most cost well above $100; I put this kit together for around $30. The aroma kit uses several common household spices, so you might already have some of
Award-Winning Red Wine Blends Roundtable
MEMBERS ONLYFive top medal winners from the WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition share the secrets of their red wine blending success. Ron Dickens from Arizona started making wine at home in 2008 and started making red blends in 2010. His recent awards include a gold for his 2011 Chardonnay, silver for 2011 “Two Red Heads” blend,
Build a Champagne Bottle Capper
MEMBERS ONLYRecently Brew Your Own magazine did a story about the pneumatic bottle capper that I had built to cap beer bottles. A short time later, I was contacted by WineMaker Magazine asking if I’d be interested in making something similar, only this time one that was able to cap standard 750 ml champagne bottles. Of
Making Tropical Fruit Wine
MEMBERS ONLYTropical fruit obviously are those native to the tropics. While the absolute number of fruit native to that area is disputed, at least 235 — more than twice that of the non-tropics — are widely recognized as having culinary significance. Almost all of them are suitable for wine. All factors governing winemaking apply to tropical
