Topic: Troubleshooting

Though making fruit-based wine is a little different from making grape-based wine, you always want to make sure you’ve got enough sugar, acid, tannin and aromatic and flavor compounds to result in

Dear Wine Wizard, How do I get copper sulfate in accurate diluted food grade form? I would like to treat 5 gallons (19 L) of stinky fruit wine to get rid of

Dear Wine Wizard, I made a Muscadine wine this year that ended up very dry with harsh flavor. I wanted it to have more of a grape flavor so I added some

Positive effects of oxidation? How can that be? Winemakers know that oxygen negatively affects wine and they process wine with the utmost care to prevent oxidation. Two common winemaking practices that have

Dear Wine Wizard, I have been making red Zinfandel wine at home with juice concentrate. I‘ve noticed crystals forming inside and they stick to the bottle. When you shake the bottle they

My condolences on experiencing your first visitation by the ever present, but never welcome, Drosophila melanogaster — more commonly known as the common fruit fly. These prolific and pesky little airborne bugs

More experienced winemakers than yourself have spent eons trying to ponder the conundrum of a stuck fermentation. If you wanted the wine to be dry and it ended up sweet, it means

Winter is a good time to take a critical look at your cellar techniques. With a nod to the new year and its requisite resolutions, we asked two professional winemakers to discuss

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

Unless you artificially carbonate your still wines by kegging them, there is only one possible source of carbon dioxide in wines — microbes, specifically little bacteria and yeastie beasties that love to

Dear Wine Wizard, Here’s one problem you may have been asked about before. My finished wine has an aroma and taste of rubber and burnt toast, a bit like burnt rubber. Since

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

Wine Wizard replies: First of all, you need to make sure that the fermentation is finished. You do this by checking your sugars with a hyrdrometer. Fermentation for a “dry” wine is

Brettanomyces is a particularly nasty yeast that is often the bane of the collective existence of many winemakers. Its foul-smelling byproducts have often been called “barnyardy” or “mouse pee-like” on the sensory

I’m so glad you’ve discovered the pleasures of blueberries and Zinfandel! I find that these two fruits complement each other well in Bordeaux-style red winemaking. But you also seem to be experiencing

Seems like an attack of your friend and mine, the acetic acid bacteria. These bacteria live in wineries, on winery equipment and in the air. In fact, you’re probably breathing some in

It’s hard to dispute that winemaking is an art. And it’s no surprise that winemakers sometimes act like artists. Now imagine, if you will, a room full of artists who meet to

Wine Wizard replies: Even though I’d have to see the recipe and an outline of what you do every step of the way to truly diagnose the cause, I can, however, tell

Sometimes things go wrong, and the result is off-flavors. But most wine defects are easily prevented with good sanitation and a few simple winemaking techniques.