Topic: Wine-Wizard

Dear Wine Wizard, I bottle my wine in recycled bottles and give much of it away. A friend who is on the receiving end is critical of my choice in color type

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

Dear Wine Wizard, I used isinglass as a clarifier in my Viognier. I have it in a 55-gallon plastic food-grade barrel. It started to settle out some of the particles but never

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

Dear Wine Wizard, Can Lambrusco wine be refrigerated for several months and then safely kept on a wine rack? What is the expiration time frame for this wine? Jeanne Considine Boulder, Colorado

You’re right to suspect that both the potassium metabisulfite powder and solution can lose their power over time. The solution, which you make by mixing the powder with water, is particularly unstable.

The “red wine headache” is one of those wine questions that lies somewhere between legend and reality. However, there are some real answers. I’ll lay them out and you can decide for

Dear Wine Wizard, Could I make wine in an aquarium or would the glue cause a problem? Dean Mehrkens Thief River Falls, Minnesota Wine Wizard replies: “This is the dawning of the

Dear Wine Wizard, Can I add yeast to Mountain Dew or Sprite to make it into a “wine”? Dean Mehrkens Thief River Falls, Minnesota Wine Wizard replies: Whoa. Sprite or Mountain Dew?

Lallzyme EX is a blend of enzymes that helps break down the plant cells in grapes. This mix of pectinase, cellulase and hemicellulase is introduced at the crusher or right at the

Wine Wizard answers: Synthetic corks are becoming more and more popular as commercial and home winemakers alike seek to avoid the 5 to 15 percent of bottles that can be ruined due

I firmly believe that — much like Sauternes and foie gras, Port and blue cheese — oak chips and cheese cloth were always destined for each other. Many winemakers, from purveyors of

Blending is fine; but if you don’t have enough suitable wine to lower the alcohol to a point you like, make it into a dessert wine. When faced with a 17 percenty

Wine Wizard replies: If you’re looking for a way to boost acid without adding extra sugar, stick to acid blend. Using grape-juice concentrate as an additional fermenting agent in fruit wines, on

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

Ah yes, the beloved fluted tops. I’ve heard many justifications for them from various folks, usually that the tops help you to pour the wine without dripping down the side of the

The Wine Wizard replies: It’s illegal for commercial winemakers to add anything non-Vitis vinifera to their table wine and still have it be labeled as such. However, I’m sure that many an

Dear Wine Wizard, I desperately need to know how to cool my primary. I use two 50-gallon barrels to ferment my wine and am tired of using frozen one-gallon plastic jugs. There

Wine Wizard replies: It is impossible to make a sulfite-free wine, because wine yeast produce sulfur dioxide (SO2) during the fermentation process. Wines with no added sulfite contain from 6 to 40

Dear Wine Wizard, I have been making mead for a few years. I love the clover and honey accents in it. Most people who have tried it like the taste, but they

The Wine Wizard replies: In the home winemaking world there is quite a bit of debate on how to treat corks before they’re fed into the hand corker and forced down the

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

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

Dear Wine Wizard, I raised the TA of the must from 0.5 to 0.6 at the beginning of fermentation for my red wine. Should I still add malolatic bacteria to start MLF