Wine Wizard
Do you have any suggestions for a wine that came out too “hot” with a higher than expected alcohol content?
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
My wine has some kind of flies buzzing around the must. Do I need to throw this batch out?
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
Is filtering good or bad for your wine?
To filter or not to filter, that is the question. For the home winemaker it often is less a question of quality than a question of cash flow or wanting to be
Can I add grape juice in place of acid blend to my country fruit wine?
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
I have some kind of grapes growing in my backyard, but have no clue as to what kind they might be. Is there a way to figure it out?
The ancient science of identifying grapevines by their physical characteristics is called ampelography and, you’ll be happy to know, it is a relatively well-documented field. As you can imagine, in the days
What can I do to make my wine more dry and less sweet?
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
Do fluted bottles serve any useful purpose other just for looks?
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
What would happen if you added a vanilla bean to red wine in hopes of getting some vanilla flavors traditionally given off by oak barrels?
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
How can I keep my fermenters cool during hot weather?
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
Can I make a sulfite-free wine?
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
What can I do to improve the aroma of my mead?
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
Should I boil or soak my corks prior to bottling?
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
What can I do to prevent my recurring problem of excess CO2 in my wines?
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
My finished wine has the aroma and taste of burnt rubber. What did I do wrong?
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
I am getting different gravity readings in my just-crushed juice from samples taken from the top and bottom of the vessel. What’s going on and is there a proper place to take these readings?
Your question is a valid one — one that many winemakers before you have wondered about. As you have discovered, where you take a sample from in a tank can give you
My first white wine has a fizziness and tasted like it is almost carbonated. Do you have any suggestions?
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
Can I have some advice on malo-lactic fermentation and its impact on acidity?
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
How do I allow for suspended solids when taking hydrometer readings?
You’ve hit the nail on he head — a hydrometer reading does depend on the amount of suspended solids in the juice that you’re measuring. As sugar is more dense than water,
I want to drip a wax coating on the top of my bottles to add that special touch. Can you advise me on how to do this?
Dear Wine Wizard, I’m bottling some mead, and wanted to add that extra special touch to the finished product. I’ve seen some bottles with a wax coating on the top, the kind
My wine tastes tart and I think there is too much acid. Any suggestions to correct this problem?
You all seem to have the same problem, so I thought I’d answer you all together. Acid adjustment, or better, achieving the right acid balance, is one of the arts of winemaking.
Should I add Campden tablets each time I rack my wine and how do I measure the level of sulfite in my wine?
Hold on there, tiger! If you’ve got a standard 0.44 gram Campden tablet and you’re putting it in one gallon (3.8 L) of wine, you’re blasting it with 66 mg/L sulfur dioxide,
Are the lumbrusca riparia grapes I’m growing the same kind of grapes used to make lambrusco wine?
Dear Wine Wizard, I’m new to wine making but I have made beer and mead for three years. What types of grapes and yeast are used to make lambrusco wine? Also the
I added oak beans to several different batches of wine at the same time. Only my Chardonnay turned milky and hazy while the other wines were clear. Do you have any idea what happened?
Dear Wine Wizard, After I stabilized my wine, I added French medium toast oak beans to the Chardonnay 3/4 cup (new beans), Sauvignon Blanc 1/3 cup (new beans), Ruisseau Blanc 3/4 cup
Can you tell me what all those chemicals that come with wine kits are for and if it’s necessary to use them?
Wine Wizard replies: Your question is complex. In fact, it could lead to pages upon pages of response if I elucidated upon “all those chemicals” (and many of them are not really
How can I increase the sugar content of my juice without using refined sugar?
Wine Wizard replies: If you’ve seen a lot of home winemaking recipes that recommend pounds upon pounds of refined sugar, it’s because refined sugar is the cheapest agent available to home winemakers