Techniques

Not using oak on wine is a time-honored tradition for many varietals and styles, and often for good reason. There are few things as disconcerting and deeply weird as a heavily oaked

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).

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

 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

“Quantity has a quality all of its own.” -R K Ratch Someone once said, “good things come in small packages.” I’m pretty sure this was a shopkeeper who sold very small consumer

What could vacuums have to do with wine kits? While there have been times when a wet/dry vacuum would have been very helpful in my wine cellar, there is a specific benefit

Most wine drinkers who have been exposed to Amarone probably consider it to be another one of Italy’s signature wine styles — perhaps the most brutally powerful and distinctively flavorful, but one

A wine kit can save you time and trouble and allow you to make a great batch of Port with little fuss. Most Port kits come in a half-batch size, 3 U.S. gallons (11.5 L), in either ruby or tawny styles, and yield approximately 14–15 750-mL bottles, rather than the standard kit size of 6 U.S. gallons (23 L).

Ah, the wine kit — is there any invention of mankind that has contributed more happiness and pleasure than the simple box of delicious juice, clarifiers, stabilizers and thoughtful, well-written instructions? Well,

You: a happy winemaking citizen, going about your lawful fermentation business, enjoying the marvellous convenience and quality that the wine-kit industry has provided you. Your kit wine: usually a tractable and pleasant

The modern wine kit, with its gleaming plastic bag in a jazzy-looking box, didn’t start out as a miracle of modern technology. Arguably, the first wine kits were actually used in ancient

There are a lot of wine kits out there today, and their variety and quality is improving. Kits wines are designed to be easy to make, but they’re not foolproof. Even kit

The first “wine kits” sold in North America were bricks of compressed grapes, shipped to eastern states from California during prohibition. Home winemaking was as illegal as any other alcohol producing activity

A few months ago, I decided to open a bottle from my collection of homemade wines. I selected an Austrian red and pulled the cork. The wine was healthy, almost vibrant. It

Do you think it’s hard to make wine? Maybe that’s because of your winemaking neighbor — the one who grows his own grapes, built his own oaken press, and gives you tours

When it comes to selecting a wine kit, Canada is the place to start. It’s winemakers’ heaven with hundreds of quality wine kits to choose from and just as many home wine