Topic: Blending

A pair of home winemakers share the results from trials they conducted this past harvest in techniques for making rosé. The results offer insight into what works, what doesn’t, and why rosés shouldn’t be judged by their color.

I think that’s a pretty cool idea! How many of us are lucky enough to hang out with such an obviously collaboratively minded group of folks? And, though it may seem daunting,

Three pros making high-end red Bordeaux-style blends share their advice on crafting these complex, elegant wines.

When a wine comes up lacking, the solution may just be blending a totally different type of wine with it. Grape wines and wines made from other fruits often have complementary characteristics that lend themselves as a key ingredient in the other.

Vitis vinifera grapes are often thought to be the species used to make wine in the premier wine regions, while French-American hybrid grapes are those used in regions vinifera grapes can’t be grown. However, each species brings something unique to the bottle and it may just be that blending grapes of both species will result in just what your wines need.

Early in my winemaking career I had the good fortune to work with one of the founders of Kenwood Vineyards, Mike Lee, who really knew how to blend wines to make them

Three North American winemakers share their best advice for blending red Italian varieties that are often lesser known and less common in the New World. These grapes bring their own challenges, but

This blending template was created by Pat Henderson and is available for download here:

Malbec makes great varietal wines (check out the feature on page 40 for advice on this approach), but is also commonly used as a blending component, specifically for Bordeaux-style blends. In Bordeaux,

Your first fortified wine can be a little intimidating. What method are you going to utilize? Sweet or dry? What type of spirits are you going to use? Then again, maybe you’re

One of the most useful techniques used in blending wine is performing bench trials, which is the process of treating a series of small wine samples with varying degrees of conditions. In

Blends are most often made from varietal wines prior to bottling, but field blending, where all of the varieties are harvested and fermented together, has its own benefits.

In this article, Michael Larner discusses the wines of the Rhône region of France, and one of the most important winemaking parts of Rhône winemaking is blending. Learn about the basics of

Blending accomplishes several goals in winemaking. It can be done to improve flavor, mouthfeel, cover a defect, balance the chemical profile, adjust the alcohol content, emulate a commercial wine you enjoy or

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

“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

Five top medal winners from the WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition share the secrets of their red wine blending success.

Bordeaux. The mere mention of the name conjures up images of centuries-old chateaus, pristine vineyards and superlative wines that have set the highest standards the world over. Bordeaux wine styles are the

One 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

Varietal 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

There are lots of reasons to try blending white wines, such as adding complexity, correcting a deficiency, or simply making something fun and new. Find out more about which white grapes work well together, and how to plan the perfect blend.

A California winemaker confesses his secret to making a good wine blend great through the use of his secret weapon.

That’s too bad that you had some stuck fermentations. It’s probable that your yeast died out due to alcohol toxicity resulting from those high brixes. Next time make sure you’re adding enough

The Zin of Blending Since I can’t taste your wine and so don’t know the profile of each individual component, it’s hard to give you “the right” answer. And I would hazard

  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