Wine Wizard
A Corker Conundrum
MEMBERS ONLYI hope I’m assuming correctly, but I’m imagining that you’ve got the smaller, lighter-weight red metal corker with adjustable spring-loaded bottle base and plastic jaws, sometimes called a “Portuguese” corker. These are decent corkers for a home winemaker with not much volume to bottle, but they can have their issues. Before I get into that,
Knocking Down Rot On Grapes
MEMBERS ONLYThat’s a great question as we approach the harvest season. Though I don’t expect 2019 harvest to be like 2011 or 1998, many of us all over the country, from Oregon to Pennsylvania, will have to deal with some kind of rot or Botrytis close to harvest time. When I’m potentially faced with it, I
Decanting Advice
FREEThose are a great couple of questions. Decanting, or the pouring of a wine out of its bottle into another, larger container (usually made of clear glass or crystal), is something that
Affects of Acid
MEMBERS ONLYIn general, I think of how TA (titratable, or total acidity) and pH impact flavor and mouthfeel in this simple (and yes, perhaps simplistic) way: TA determines how tart or sour a wine tastes while pH points to how a wine feels in the mouth. TA and pH typically won’t change in the bottle over
Determining A Wine’s Ageability
FREEI’ll answer your last questions first and then give you my thoughts on the age-worthiness of your wine. RS (residual sugar) “Dry” (no sugar remaining) is usually considered 0.2% or less (2
Yeast choice for a fruit wine
MEMBERS ONLYYou want to know what my standard, go-to, never-fail, keeps-most-wines-happy yeast is? It’s called Prise de Mousse, EC1118, Davis 796 or Premier Cuvee. Why all the names? I guess so a lot of different companies can sell it to appreciative winemakers like me. Whatever you call it or buy it as, make sure it’s fresh
Cane Juice Wine
FREEThat’s coming is a long answer but I hope it will speak to the many possible country wine situations in which you may find yourself. A good number of our readers choose
Sugar Conversion Tables
FREEFor the WineMaker’s Answer Book I referenced the Table 1-2, Appendix 1, from Wine Analysis and Production, Zoecklein et al, 1995 for the Specific Gravity to Brix tables. Note that this conversion
Dealing With Persistent Sediment
FREEGoodness, you’ve got a persistent sediment source in your wines that’s for sure. You’ve removed the gross particles by racking and filtration.You’ve cleared out proteins by using bentonite. You’ve taken out excess
Softening The Wine
MEMBERS ONLYBefore I launch into my information about gum arabic and related products, do take a minute to think that gum arabic may not give you the result you’re looking for. Gum arabic can smooth out the perception of tannins in some wines, but I’ve found that sometimes it can make the problem seem worse. If
Properly Adding Acid to a Barrel
FREEI agree with you in that acid adjustments, especially big ones, can best be made in two steps. That way you can see if you like the result as you go along.
Reconfiguring Your Tasting Palate
MEMBERS ONLYI apologize in advance for the lengthy response but this is a fantastic question and I really wanted to flesh out my answer for you and readers that are following along. You are absolutely right to realize that tasting new and developing wines is vastly different than tasting bottled wines. Especially, as wines gain bottle
Increasing A Wine’s Mouthfeel
MEMBERS ONLYI feel ya! (Yes, pun intended.) Since I don’t have much space left in this column, let me break it down for you in bite-sized pieces. Much more food for thought and things to chew on for future columns. Here are some ways to increase mouthfeel along the winemaking timeline: Harvest: Pick riper. Higher alcohol
Discussing Pros v. Cons of Pinot Noir
MEMBERS ONLYPinot Noir has quite a reputation. Often known as the “Heartbreak Grape” and lovingly discussed, dissected, and degustated (is that even a word?) by rabid Pinot-philes the world over, Pinot Noir was being talked about in the wine world well before the movie Sideways thrust it onto an international stage. Many years after Miles and
Chilled Red Wines
FREEThough especially welcome in summertime, and especially tasty with regards to Pinot Noir, I break the “room temperature reds rule” year round and with many varietals to boot. In the depths of
Gum Arabic
MEMBERS ONLYHere goes some gum arabic info . . . I was first introduced to it at Bonny Doon when Randall Grahm brought it back from one of his jaunts to France, around 1999 or so. We did extensive bench trials with it in many of the Bonny Doon wines, and in some cases chose to
Acetobacter Problems
MEMBERS ONLYWell, it seems like you have been paid a visit by a colony of Acetobacter, aka acetic acid bacteria. They love air, eat alcohol, and turn it into carbon dioxide and vinegar. Not fun. The biggest issue is that no matter what, once you’ve got them and they’ve produced a certain amount of acetic acid,
pH Reanalysis
MEMBERS ONLYThe answer to your question depends on the size of your batch. The bigger your batch, especially if it’s must all mixed together with juice and skins, you need to mix quite a bit longer. Let’s say for example you have a 5-gallon (19-L) carboy of Chardonnay juice and you are adding 1 g/L tartaric
Sulfite Timing Question
FREEThat’s a great question with a very simple answer. You should not add postassium metabisulfite (SO2, or sulfur dioxide) to your wine between primary and secondary fermentation. Because the SO2 will inhibit
Cork Variability
MEMBERS ONLYYou’re absolutely right, raised corks can either be a problem (if they’re too high, or too high of a percentage from bottle-to-bottle) or it could be nothing at all. The devil is in the details and finding out why. Bear with me while I break down a few possible causes and their implications of what
The Sulfite Blues
MEMBERS ONLYYour nose (bruised apple/sweet smell) and your chemical analysis (loss of Free SO2) are telling me that you have an oxygen ingress problem and aldehydes and perhaps an increase in VA (volatile acidity) are the result. Please do your future wines a favor and always switch from fermentation “burper” bungs to hard bungs upon racking
Passion Fruit Wine
MEMBERS ONLYWell, I will admit I have never made a passion fruit wine (living in Napa, those pesky grapes just seem to be the most convenient sugar source at hand) but I will give you what advice I can. Passion fruit (or Passiflora edulis) is a popular worldwide flavor. The fruit is eaten in desserts and
Brown Colored White Wine
FREESorry to say, but it sounds like you’ve got a no-bueno situation. White grapes should always be pressed as soon as possible after picking in order to reduce juice (and subsequent wine)
Fining Red Wines
MEMBERS ONLYRed wines are typically not fined as often as white wines, to which we often add bentonite in order to remove potentially haze-causing proteins. The tannin from the skins of red wines tends to bind with excess protein, the agglomeration of which will precipitate out during the fermentation process. Nor do we usually cold-stabilize red
Use Of Bleach In A Winery
FREEMy rule is no chlorine bleach in my wineries, never, nohow. Anything containing chlorine might contribute to the dreaded “corked wine aroma,” 2-4-6 trichloroanisole (TCA), in your finished wines. It can be