Articles

The Wine Wiz offers her wizdom to bring a tart wine into balance, as well as ways to add body to a wine and why non-alcoholic wine production should be left to the pros.

While there are a lot of urban myths surrounding winemaking, the one about racking under a full moon isn’t totally hogwash. Plus, what to do when your wine begins turning to vinegar, the specific gravity of a “dry” wine, and tips for making wonderful white wines.

Making small adjustments to a wine the moment they are needed, as opposed to one large adjustment prior to bottling, will result in a more cohesive wine. A couple of award-winning home winemakers share when you should assess your wine and what to look for.

It is both a spoilage yeast and the heart of many great wines of Bordeaux. We share what you need to understand about Brettanomyces, the common misconceptions, and methods to tame this wild yeast.

Winemakers always need to pay special attention to the possibility of rising volatile acidity and ways to stem its effects.

Phil Plummer was one of the experienced judges at the 2022 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition. After three days of judging he found himself repeating similar comments on numerous entry sheets. Now he’s here to explain in greater depth the most common flaws he tasted and the techniques that can be employed to avoid them in your next vintage.

No matter how much attention we give a wine, sometimes it will disappoint when tasted for the first time during aging. It may not be faulted, just lacking a desired characteristic. That’s when it is time to intervene. Qualities like flavor, aroma, body, color, or even tannins can all be improved with a little help.

A home winemaker details the four bench trials he conducted to adjust the acidity of a low-pH Sauvignon Blanc to show how the process is done and share the impact each approach had on the wine.

A fermentation is “stuck” when it fails to reach the desired conversion level of sugar, usually coming to a halt somewhere below 10 °Brix. It does not refer to a failure to start,

A look at the causes and corrections winemakers can make for some of the less common, but still serious, winemaking faults.

Having your homemade wines judged by experts is a great way to get feedback and improve your winemaking. In order to do so, however, you need to understand what the judges are trying to tell you and apply it to your next wine.

It is not lost on the well-informed winegrower/winemaker that fungi — ancient, single-cell organisms that have been on this planet hundreds of millions of years longer than humans — are our best

Get to know the most common wine faults, their causes, and fixes you can try to alleviate them.

The Wizard explores the many sensations that tasters experience as a wine goes from grapes, through fermentation, and into the early stages of aging; in order to be a better judge of a wine’s character when finished. Also, a reader has a question about properly adding acid to a barrel.

Q 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 the rotten

Volatile acidity (VA) is a flaw that can ruin the aroma of a wine. Explore what exactly VA is, why it is such a problem, and techniques to avoid VA in the future.

Q I have a Merlot to which I added SO2 thirteen days ago and it smelled ok. but last night I pulled a sample and it had a bruised apple smell and

This past year brought challenges and rewards for home vineyardists — and also a lot of questions for our vineyard expert Wes Hagen.

An introduction into volatile acidity (VA) and how to avoid it.

Grape growing questions answered!

If 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.

It’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.

From modern wine chemistry labs to your home winery — what is known about tannins and how can winemakers control their impact on their wine? Research is debunking many widely-held beliefs about

It’s as much a process as it is a condition. It’s also a perfectly natural part of the fermenting process. It can happen at any time and depending on when and how

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