Writer: Alison Crowe

While there are a lot of urban myths surrounding winemaking, the one about racking under a full moon isn’t totally hogwash. Plus, what to do when your wine begins turning to vinegar, the specific gravity of a “dry” wine, and tips for making wonderful white wines.

While there is so much hooey out there about “don’t rack during a new moon” or “only bottle during a full moon,” the winemaking dictum you mention is based, at least loosely,

The quick and dirty answer to your question, and quite possibly not the one you want to hear, is that you’re best off dumping your vinegar bottles of wine down the drain.

I definitely think you should wait for the fermentation to complete and then rack and add sulfur dioxide. I doubt you’ll have to add any sorbate to protect against a re-start fermentation

It seems like you’ve found something that works for your red grape winemaking — making additions based on your 36-lb. (16-kg) lugs of grapes. Your estimated yield for grapes fermented on the

You’re a reader after my own heart! Yes, the wine industry seems to have made life more difficult for itself by inventing (and continuing to promulgate) a litany of “to dos” and

Bravo to you for doing bench trials! If you’ve read my columns over the years you know that doing bench trials — that is, testing a wine treatment on a small scale

I’m glad you wrote in this question. It points to the importance of thinking about our wines in the big picture sense (not to mention the importance of double checking before making

If you sometimes prefer your red wines served a little on the cool side or are not afraid of buying high-end wines with screw cap closures, you aren’t alone! The Wine Wizard shares her “consumer myths” that need to be debunked. Plus, the role your yeast choice plays on malolactic fermentation, and advice on adjusting a high-pH juice.

The pH of these grapes do seem high. For California grapes, I like to see whites in the 3.30–3.45 range and reds in the 3.45–3.65 range when picked. However, many of our

You are really onto something here! Water is added to recipes for many different reasons. If you’re making a wine with flowers or dry fruits (like dandelion wine or elderberry wine) you’ll

Interestingly, even though your heat summation units are low, you are close to the Pacific Coast so I am guessing your winters are mild. European grapevines (Vitis vinifera) grow at a minimum

Though I’m no medical doctor (and certainly don’t play one on TV), from what research I was able to pull together, if I personally had a shellfish allergy I would feel comfortable

The Wizard offers advice on when and how to lower pH. She also suggests a remedy for thin country wines, explains why degree days are only part of the story when selecting grape varieties to grow, and whether chitosan is safe to use if one has a shellfish allergy.

The Wine Wizard fields questions on eliminating (and avoiding) browning in red wines, malolactic fermentation test strips, and techniques for making wine from maple sap.

There’s the old saw about the sow’s ear and the silk purse. It reminds me of my old adage of “never blend a loser,” which admonishes readers against blending bad wine into

You are right, at WineMaker magazine we typically don’t want to advertise one product over another. That being said, we are always open to new advances and products that help our readers.

Maple sap is a great source of natural sugar and certainly qualifies as home winemaking material. What is less certain, as you’ve found out, is how much of those subtle maple aromas

The Wine Wizard shares the signs to look for and ways to monitor malolactic fermentation, offers tips on adding supplemental grape skins to a red wine, and when to move a red wine’s fermentation from open containers to under an airlock.

Kaboom! Nobody likes an exploding carboy! “Fermentation happens,” as one of my professors at UC-Davis always used to say. Sounds like the perfect home winemaking meme to me (or t-shirt). As wine

That’s a great question and one, like so much in winemaking, that can be answered by a bit of a compromise. You’re on the right track by ordering your supplies right before

There’s an ancient tradition of making wine using skins “donated” from other fermentations and projects. The one you list above is one such scenario. The most well-known incidence of this practice includes

MLF is a bit confusing for some because it’s called a “fermentation” but it’s certainly not as active, visible, smellable, and in your face as your primary sugar-to-alcohol fermentation. MLF happens when

There is indeed a combination of things I think could help, but it may take a little bit of elbow grease on your part. Two years is a long time for a

It sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right to optimize aromas in what should be “aromatic” white varieties. I would recommend you make sure your full process includes the following