Wine Wizard
Tips For Blending Wine
MEMBERS ONLYI think that’s a pretty cool idea! How many of us are lucky enough to hang out with such an obviously collaboratively minded group of folks? And, though it may seem daunting, there’s nothing like jumping in and getting started. At the very least you’ll learn something going through the process yourself and I’m sure
Making Wine With Smoke-Effected Grapes
MEMBERS ONLYIndeed, the last few years (2017 and 2020 especially) grape growing areas in Northern California and other parts of the state including the Central Coast have experienced historically large wildfires. If grapes are exposed to smoke, winemakers should be alert to the possibility of smoke taint damage to grapes and to finished wines during and
Strategies for a Chaptalization Mistake
FREEIt sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right, especially being that your grape wine has taken off, but your plum wine is just plum tuckered out. Seems like you’ve got
Oak Barrel Aging Advice
MEMBERS ONLYHi Larry, congrats on your new piece of equipment! I’m sure you’ll find it adds to the kinds of wine you can make. Since you just filled your barrel and it’s brand new, you might want to open the bung and check the wine level now, since it’s been three weeks. Sometimes new barrels are
Learning To Taste Wine At Different Stages
FREEI apologize in advance for the lengthy response, but this is a fantastic question and I really wanted to flesh out my answer for you. You’re absolutely right to realize that tasting
Bottling Blues Leads to Kegging Thoughts
MEMBERS ONLYHey, I’ve been there . . . a couple of years ago I also entered into unknown territory. After years of bottling one of my commercial Pinot Noirs in Stelvin screwcaps, I embarked on an adventure into the land of wine kegs, or “wine-on-tap.” I kept hearing from sommeliers and restaurant staff how by-the-glass programs
The Wine Wizard’s “Pearls of Wiz-dom”
FREEThanks for your kind words! I always really enjoy the WineMaker Conferences and connecting with the readership — it helps me put names and faces to the invisible readership out there and
Campden Tablets Best Practices
MEMBERS ONLYThe great thing about Campden tablets (a convenient form of dosing in sulfur dioxide for home winemakers) is that they will inhibit the yeast and bacteria you do not want (which are sensitive to sulfur dioxide) while allowing the yeast you do want to continue to power through the fermentation. Longtime readers of my column
Getting Grape Updates During Growing Season
MEMBERS ONLYSometimes local AVA (American Viticultural Area) groups will have data available on their websites or emails available to members (the latter is the case with, for example, Napa Valley Vintners). For the most part, however, home winemakers won’t be members of these kinds of groups (they can cost thousands of dollars to join) so they
Coping With Grapes Affected By Smoke Taint
MEMBERS ONLYSome characteristics found in smoke-tainted wines are the same that can be found in toasted oak barrels. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com I’ve heard rumor that a couple of smaller wineries that have experienced smoke taint in their grapes are indeed evolving that wine into new styles. Depending on the grape type and level of impact,
Bottling Tips and Checklist
MEMBERS ONLYBottling day gets easier with equipment upgrades and practice. But whether your first or fiftieth bottle run, certain fundamentals need to always be followed. Photo by Brett Cook I totally get it! There are some great articles about bottling in the WineMaker article archives at www.winemakermag.com. Though it’s a topic my fellow authors have covered
Learn Some Wine Judge Etiquette
FREECongrats on getting invited to your first ever wine judging! I’ve been judging wine competitions, both for home and commercial winemakers, for over 15 years now and they’re always a great way
Post-Fermentation Wine Acid Adjustment
MEMBERS ONLYGreat topic and great questions. If you’ve read my columns over the years, you’re familiar with my mantra of acid being the “backbone” of wine, as well as the importance of having the correct pH for long-term aging. The higher the pH (lower acidity), the more spoilage organisms like Lactobacillus and Acetobacter can get a
Troubleshooting Malolactic Fermentation
MEMBERS ONLYWell, it’s tough to say what would make one cloudy and the other clear, except for the fact that they may not have been identical coming from your fermenters. If you did blend/homogenize after pressing, then it’s possible you’re seeing the cloudy wine (pH 3.77) going through the MLF (malolactic fermentation) a little more quickly
Finding A Vinegar Storage Space
FREEYou got a chuckle out of me. Indeed, how dare you introduce vinegar to your wines! I’m actually very happy that you’re writing so you can learn how not to introduce vinegar
Tips For Making Cantaloupe Wine
MEMBERS ONLYBecause cantaloupes have high pH, my guess is that the red speckles you’re seeing in a layer on top of your wine are bacteria colonies and no, they are not to be expected. According to a fruit pH chart I found online from Clemson University, the pH of cantaloupes usually falls in the range of
Judging Fermentation Completion
MEMBERS ONLYWhile the density of water at room temperature is 1.000 standard gravity, finished dry wine should be less dense than that. Photo courtesy of Tim Vandergrift It certainly sounds like you are getting into the dryness zone. Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a liquid in relation to the density of water,
Dealing With Acid Issue on a Raspberry Wine
MEMBERS ONLYI really applaud you for keeping such detailed records and testing regularly. This really helps me when diagnosing issues and coming up with ways to help. I want to start off by saying that raspberries are a really high-acid fruit and that high titratable acidity won’t necessarily track with the pH like it does in
Barrel Alternatives: Matching quality grapes with oak
MEMBERS ONLYNew oak barrels can provide a lot of character to wine, but they are a sizable investment. Photo courtesy of MoreWine! Hey, I see you, I hear you, and I’m so here for you! The average price for a French oak barrel has really become very high in the last couple of years (decades?) and
Effects Of Using Killer Yeast In My Winery?
MEMBERS ONLYI’m glad that you are attuned to your yeast and realize that some strains are “killer factor positive” and one is “sensitive.” I really wish that the yeast industry had come up with a different term than “killer,” it makes it sound like yeast cells are going to, like some monster from a 1960’s B
Sensing Ripeness In Grapes
MEMBERS ONLYHey, it happens to me too. But fear not, we’re going to impart some information that’ll give you the confidence to pick even if you don’t know the Brix number. Many winemakers like knowing a lot about the batch of grapes they’re going to be picking, from sugar level (Brix) to acidity (pH and total
Uneven Ripening Of Grapes
MEMBERS ONLYMany thanks to you for being a WineMaker magazine reader! We love being a source of helpfulness in the sometimes difficult-to-navigate world that is international small-scale winemaking. Uneven vineyard ripening is indeed a difficult thing to contend with. If one’s vineyard is large enough, it’s easy enough to divide it into “blocks” that ripen right
Cures To An Oversulfited Wine
FREESince you can’t measure your free and total SO₂, let’s do some numbers to see what kind of a potential problem you might be facing. First off, let’s talk about your bottle-rinsing
Advice For A Beginning Winemaker
MEMBERS ONLYWinemaking is always a learning process and even those of us that have been doing this for a long time still learn a lot every harvest and all year-round! However, that being said, I do have some tidbits for new winemakers. In my Winemaker’s Answer Book I spell out what I think are probably the
Remove A White Film on Carboy
MEMBERS ONLYWow, looks like you’ve got a serious case of “Ring Around the Carboy.” Thanks for sending in the picture, I always love it when readers do that because, especially in cases like these, it gives me a good visual to go from. I can see that pesky stain on the inside of the neck of