Wine Wizard
Calculating ABV
MEMBERS ONLYThis is a great question. Luckily the answer is simple. You still only calculate potential alcohol based on the original Brix reading. “Negative Brixes,” or when the density of your fermented solution reads below the 0.00 °Brix mark on your hydrometer, happen because they are just that: Fermented. Alcohol is much less dense than water
Why The Tiny Bubbles?
MEMBERS ONLYThere are so many microbes that can produce tiny bubbles in new wines that perhaps your question should be, what microbes will not produce tiny bubbles in dry must? Everything from (of course) Lactobacilli (AKA LAB or lactic acid bacteria) to Acetobacter (which produce acetic acid) to spoilage yeasts like Brettanomyces will produce carbon dioxide
Adjusting Acid In An Aged Wine
FREEYou can absolutely adjust acidity in a wine when it is one year old. Though I often say that it’s best to do major adjustments early on in a wine’s life (since
Freezing Grape Must
MEMBERS ONLYIf you have the freezer space I say freeze, freeze away! It’s actually somewhat common (for those grape producers who specialize in it like Brehm Vineyards, Vino Superiore, or Wine Grapes Direct) for growers to freeze grapes and ship them to areas of the country where they don’t grow so well naturally. I myself used
Over-Sulfited My Wine
MEMBERS ONLYI’m not sure if in the above question you are referring to having over-added to grape juice or to finished wine. Regardless, adding 45 grams of potassium metabisulfite, which is about 58% sulfur dioxide (SO2), to 60 liters of wine will yield quite a bit of SO2 (to put it mildly). I calculate that’ll get
Sulfite Question When Blending Wine
MEMBERS ONLYYou bring up a very good question. For the compound you’re talking about, sulfur dioxide, you’ll probably come pretty close to what you would predict based on knowing the volume and the current free SO2. This is just like alcohol, residual sugar, or titratable acidity and can be predicted based on a simple volume to
Get Your Swirl On
FREEI say Toe-may-toe, you say toe-mah-toe . . . this sounds like a bizarre wine myth in the making that we should just quash right here. Though undoubtedly, swirling your wine glass
Natural Fining For White and Rosé Wines
MEMBERS ONLYWell, an old-timer winemaker I used to work with would say, “The most natural fining agent for any wine is time.” What he meant was that with time, solids fall out, proteins eventually coagulate and fall to the bottom of the aging vessel and tartrates reach an equilibrium so they aren’t in excess and big
Glass vs. Wood
FREEHome winemakers tend to ferment in glass carboys (big 5-gallon/19-L jars, essentially) because they are usually better-sized and more convenient to a home hobbyist than larger vessels like a 59-gallon (223-L) barrel.
Refermentation Questions
MEMBERS ONLYIt’s hard to tell exactly what may be the issue because wines that just finish fermenting and are so young often have “funny” smells and do indeed not smell like the finished wine that you are used to buying off a shelf. It’s hard to know if you are experiencing a bacteria or yeast-caused issue.
White Film In My Wine Barrel
MEMBERS ONLYIt sounds like you are doing the right thing. This is probably an aerophilic “flor” type yeast that is eating alcohol, and in the presence of air (if it was slightly untopped) decided to have a little fun in the headspace. If you don’t feel the taste or aroma are really damaged or changed, completely
Covert Winemaking
MEMBERS ONLYI give you credit for being so dogged in your desire to try fermenting! The great news about yeast is that, as I’ve often said in these columns, yeast live everywhere around us. They are naturally present on the skins of many fruits and vegetables and even in the air you’re breathing right now. The
Sediment In A Fruit Wine
MEMBERS ONLYI definitely would re-think your pre-bottling aging and fining procedures. Many wines, especially those made with fruit other than grapes, are susceptible to flocculation (a fancy term for sediment) and visible fallout. Wine is a complex chemical soup and many reactions take place over time; wine isn’t always what it seems to be in early
Adding Campden Tablets to Wine
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. The little packet of yeast
Adding Sambuca to Wine
MEMBERS ONLYWell I like your moxie. Sometimes it takes a little thinking outside the box to really make our beverages sing, and in your case (though it would be anathema to a commercial winery, for which this kind of thing is prohibited by law) you just might want to give it a try. That’s perhaps the
Putting A Value On A Vineyard
MEMBERS ONLYI’m very sorry about your vine loss. I do agree with Dr. Lockwood that you will probably lose the vines that were knocked down. You might want to really work closely with your insurance company because they might compensate you on different metrics, like replacement cost, market value or just on the current year’s crop.
Making Maple Wine
MEMBERS ONLYMaple sap is a great source of natural sugar and certainly qualifies as home winemaking material. What is less certain, as you have found out, is how much of those subtle maple aromas and flavors will stick around in a finished wine. I’m glad you’re experimenting with adding acid. Like you’ve discovered, maple syrup just
Deprived Vines
MEMBERS ONLYIt sounds to me like you possibly have a heat and/or overexposure problem there with your vines. I’ll share a little personal anecdote with you about a similar situation that I have some experience with in hopes that it relates to your own situation and helps you out. I have a Malbec grapevine in a
Bottle Sediments
MEMBERS ONLYIt can be wrenching for a winemaker to look at his or her bottles developing a sediment over time. Many fruits, especially those high in pectin, proteins, or phenols are especially prone to sedimentation during aging. It’s often just too hard to wait long enough for everything to precipitate out of solution (months, sometimes years)
Yeast Options
MEMBERS ONLYGood for you for thinking “outside the box” and going with a different yeast choice. I love both D80 and D254 for Syrah. D80 was isolated by the ICV in 1992 from the Côte Rôtie region of the Rhône Valley in France and is characterized, in my experience, by its big mouthfeel and licorice and
White Crystals After Crushing
MEMBERS ONLYI’ve had a similar experience — both with having to pick gapes at sub-optimal times (curse you, weather!) as well as having that rough white residue on my crush equipment. The residue, which resembles a thicker than normal layer of hard water scale, comes from the grapes themselves. From what I understand, it’s simply an
Malolactic Fermentation Timing
MEMBERS ONLYI’m a little old school when it comes to malolactic fermentation, but it’s always served me well. There are some winemakers who try to get a jump on malolactic (ML) completion and co-inoculate with ML bacteria and wine yeast at the same time, but in my mind this is a little risky. You see, yeast
Mellowing A Big Wine
FREEEven my “purist” winemaking friends usually aren’t opposed to doing a little egg white fining when it comes to smoothing out the rough edges on their big reds. It’s an ancient and
Chlorine In My Wine
MEMBERS ONLYOh dear. I fear that your wine has been contaminated not just with chlorine, but with the dreaded TCA, or tri-chloroanisole aroma defect. Also known as the “corked” aroma, TCA is the scourge of winemakers the world over. Commercial as well as home winemakers have to be wary of this common wine aroma defect. The
Dealing With High Brix Grapes
FREEYou definitely want to water down that high-sugar juice before you pitch your yeast. High Brixes lead to high alcohols, which lead to yeast that just can’t complete a fermentation. Stuck fermentations