Topic: Troubleshooting
Grape Growing Q&A
MEMBERS ONLYGrape growing questions answered!
Using Outside Labs to Run Analysis Tests on your Wine
MEMBERS ONLYThere is lots of information out there about how to run various juice and wine analytical procedures at home if you want to do that. If you do not want to run the tests but you are interested in the answers, you may live in an area that has a commercial or university laboratory that
Tannin Additions in Wine Kits
MEMBERS ONLYYou might not achieve perfection on the first try, but it’s certain that changing up your game can make a huge difference to your finished kit wine. What kind of difference? You can make a difference so big that when you’re done it might seem like a completely different wine altogether. When you know the
Oxidation in Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYThe early signs of oxidation are orange to brown colors developing in your wine. In white wine, the same exact wine (pictured above) can go from white (left) to brown (right) if oxygen exposure is not prevented. Image by Mick Rock/Cephas Library Based on what I have seen in wine competition results and from my
When Life Gives You Limes Make Wine
MEMBERS ONLYVery, very interesting. I have to say that the zest of 21 limes for three gallons (11 L) of liquid seems like a lot of lime-y-ness to me! I can only imagine that indeed, it did have a very strong lime peel taste. My suggestion for “taming” this would be a dilution strategy. The aroma
Oxygen Reduction in Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYOxidation gets a lot of attention in winemaking — and it should! WineMaker magazine has covered oxidation issues from several different angles over the past few years. While some presence of oxygen in wine contributes positive effects, most of the time the home winemaker is excluding oxygen to avoid the browning, aldehyde formation, and spoilage
Moldy Odor In My Wines
MEMBERS ONLYWould you be surprised to know that you may be doing absolutely nothing wrong? Even though you tried to sanitize your corks (assuming you are using natural corks and not artificial corks) by soaking in a sulfite solution before bottling, it’s almost impossible to completely eradicate all of the organisms that could cause TCA (trichloroanisole)
Restart Stuck Fermentations
MEMBERS ONLYAll home winemakers wish — and strive — for fermentations that go smoothly and completely to the desired finish, usually dry wine. When things go wrong, a frequent problem is a stuck or sluggish fermentation. In his classic Knowing and Making Wine, Emile Peynaud refers to these conditions as “fermentation stoppage” and calls that a
Brettanomyces
MEMBERS ONLYIf you’ve ever tasted a wine that had a funky “barnyard” quality to it, you already know what Brettanomyces can do. Find out how to prevent it in your home winery.
Controlling Brettanomyces: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYBrettanomyces has been known to take hold of wines —and entire wineries — destroying countless hours of hard work that was put into creating these wines. However, there are also regions in the world such as Bordeaux where Brett is an accepted characteristic found in many of the finest wines. So what do the pros
Volatile Sulfur Compounds and Hydrogen Sulfide in Wine
MEMBERS ONLYIf you have ever encountered volatile sulfur compounds in wine, of which hydrogen sulfide is the most common, you know how repulsive the smell can be. It can shoot one’s anxiety up a few notches because it always seems to catch you by surprise, and that the source of the problem is often difficult to
Home Winemaking Quality Control
MEMBERS ONLYWhen the editors at WineMaker suggested quality control (QC) for a story, I was delighted to take it on. I have a long personal and professional history with QC and it infuses most of my activities — including my fermentation hobbies. Before joining the world of winemaking, I put my chemistry degree to work in
20 Home Winemaking Troubleshooting Tips
MEMBERS ONLYIn a notebook of fermentation hobby records, I have a lab report dated November 3, 1998. That soil pre-plant analysis from Fruit Growers Laboratory marked my start 20 years ago in becoming a home grape grower and vintner. Along the way, I have seen and addressed pitfalls and trouble spots that can come up on
Reductive Resolutions
MEMBERS ONLYYour question about how to avoid a swampy, reductive odor in your Chardonnay after bottling is an interesting one. For readers who may not be aware, “reductive” is a non-exact sensory term often used to signal rotten egg or hydrogen sulfide-type aromas. Hydrogen sulfide in wine can be caused by a few different things but
Impact of Oxygen on Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYOxygen’s presence or absence at the various stages of winemaking can have extraordinarily important and lasting effects on what our wines taste like. Too much and you risk oxidation damage, too little and you risk reduction stink. The effects of oxygen on wine, much more so with red wines, may be the most complex and
Perfecting and Protecting Wine Color
FREEIt’s said that people eat and drink with their eyes, and when it comes to wine there is no exception.Find out how to create and protect the color of your red, white, and pink wines.
Re-Fermentation Issues
MEMBERS ONLYLet me put on my thinking cap. Indeed I think you are facing a re-fermentation and I’d bet that it is due to your 1% residual sugar, but perhaps secondarily to a re-fermentation of residual malic acid in the wine. Free sulfur dioxide concentration diminishes in the bottle over time and after a year levels
Troubleshooting Wine Kit Aroma
MEMBERS ONLYBefore we finish shooting smelly troubles in wine kits we need to do a quick recap of the basics of troubleshooting: Almost all of these issues can be avoided if you carefully follow the instructions that came with your wine kit. Kits sometimes have procedures that contradict accepted techniques for fresh grape/fresh juice winemaking. There
Sweetening Wine Without Refermentation
MEMBERS ONLYUnfortunately, there are only so many options for preventing fermentation in sweet wines and they all involve some degree of sacrifice or difficulty. The list of “cons” is long compared with the one “pro” of an arrested fermentation. First off, you’re correct that adding sorbate can sometimes produce off-flavors over time. Secondly, fortifying with alcohol
Sluggish Fermentations — Cabernet Franc
MEMBERS ONLYSee my response here regarding general information about stuck and sluggish fermentations. Your wine is a lot closer to dryness (essentially 0 °Brix) than the previous reader’s sweetest lot, so I don’t know if I would recommend a re-start. When I’ve attempted re-starts below 0 °Brix, the extra added yeast and nutrients just make the
Adding Copper
MEMBERS ONLYAs you’ve probably read in my columns and in the Winemaker’s Answer Book, though I like to “let wine be what it will be,” when it comes to potentially toxic things like high residual levels of copper, I like to only add — when I really have to — in measurable amounts. Though admittedly it
I accidentally made my sulfite solution at 20%. Is the wine still drinkable?
MEMBERS ONLYSince I don’t know what your “recommended” number was it’s impossible for me to know what a double addition is in this case. Therefore, you should definitely exercise caution before drinking and if your addition was greater than 50 ppm, I would send a sample out for a lab to check it. The legal limit
Should I try using carbon dioxide whenever I rack to expel oxygen. Or should I bottle sooner?
MEMBERS ONLYI have to commiserate with you on the Sangiovese and oxidation dance. For some reason, this grape varietal seems to be especially prone to color (and related oxidation) issues. Much like Pinot Noir, Sangiovese lacks some of the colored precursors that help a wine age gracefully. Some of the compounds that form high color are,
I have about 30 gallons (114 L) of Cabernet Franc in 5-gallon (19-L) carboys that have a small yellow ring in the neck. Do you have any suggestions?
MEMBERS ONLYThe dreaded “ring around the carboy” strikes again! Quickie answer – your instincts are correct. I would rack to clean containers and, since you’ve already added SO2, and since I doubt your malolactic (ML) fermentation will reignite as a result, go ahead and give it about 10–20 mg/L total SO2. ML bacteria are notoriously difficult
How do I really know that my juice is Syrah, and are there Syrahs that don’t have that deep purple color?
MEMBERS ONLYYou say you have a Syrah that is not purple, and how do you know it’s Syrah? To address your second question first, I would say you really have to trust your supplier unless you want to spend a lot of money playing detective (more on that presently). The first step I would take is