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Writer: Alison Crowe

When Life Gives You Limes Make Wine

Very, very interesting. I have to say that the zest of 21 limes for three gallons (11 L) of liquid seems like a lot of lime-y-ness to me! I can only imagine


Color Loss in Candy Cane Wine

Well, well, well. Candy cane wine is one I have never heard of! However, as one of my winemaking professors always said, you can ferment just about anything as long as you


Moldy Odor In My Wines

Would you be surprised to know that you may be doing absolutely nothing wrong? Even though you tried to sanitize your corks (assuming you are using natural corks and not artificial corks)


Calculating Molecular SO2

Sulfur dioxide, or SO2, has many benefits in winemaking and has been added to wine for centuries to act as a preservative. When you add SO2 to your wine, part of it


Exploring The Corking Options

The choice of bottle closure is a topic that winemakers the world over debate with regularity. Every time a new bottle closure or packaging method comes out (twist off? Glass? Stainless steel


Adding Some Sparkle To Your Wines

Fermentation by itself is tricky but secondary fermentations for sparkling wines are especially so because your new yeast must fight against existing alcohol (which is toxic to yeast), depleted nutrition, and potentially


Measuring Brix in Fermentation

Like most everything in winemaking, the glib answer is, “It depends.” The real answer, however, is much more complex and as you intimate, experience can play a large part in fine-tuning your


Red Wine Sediment

I applaud you for your patience in aging your bottled wines that long! Would you be surprised to know that in the US most bottles of wine are consumed within 72 hours


Tartrate Crystals

I always think that trying to precipitate out some of the worst crystals that could form is a good idea, especially for any wine that may be sold commercially or entered into


Malolactic Problems

The bad news in all of the above is that malolactic bacteria are extremely sensitive to sulfur dioxide. For that reason, it’s critical to not add any SO2 to wine, in any


Understanding Bentonite

Wine, as I’ve often written, is a complex chimerical soup. Wine naturally contains lots of different amino acids and some of those amino acids are in long-chain form and actually are proteins.


Wine Press Mold Growth

Ah, yes, the joys of wood. We use wood in the winery for barrels and barrel-alternatives of course but, especially for the small-scale winemaker, wooden presses are still often part of our


Magnesium Sulfate Vineyard Sprays

Magnesium Sulfate (MgSO4), AKA Epsom salts, is a very common vineyard amendment. It can be applied as a foliar spray during the growing season to provide vines with magnesium and sulfur. Magnesium,


First-Time Oak Barrel Soaking

Your pictures of the barrel you made are very impressive and I applaud both your ambition and skill! The artistry it takes to cut, shape, curve, and toast wood so it will


Fires in California’s Wine Country

For one week in October, portions of California’s wine country were up in flames in what has been deemed the state’s most destructive and costly fire. Beyond the toll it took on countless families whose homes were destroyed and lives uprooted, questions also arose regarding the fire’s impact on the 2017 vintage.


Carbonic Maceration

Carbonic maceration is a 19th-century technique (which was probably practiced in some amount, or in a hybrid style, much earlier) currently enjoying an en vogue resurgence in some parts of the US


Submerge Those Oak Chips

I love your innovation. A “chip sock” can be a real boon to winemakers. In fact, I mention using one in The Winemaker’s Answer Book where I suggest using a nylon stocking


Using Essential Oils In Wine

You can certainly experiment with essential oils in your winemaking if you remember the old adage that “oil and water don’t mix.” Essential oils are the natural distilled volatile aroma compounds from


Reductive Resolutions

Your question about how to avoid a swampy, reductive odor in your Chardonnay after bottling is an interesting one. For readers who may not be aware, “reductive” is a non-exact sensory term


Wine Yields From a Vineyard

As one of my vineyard manager co-workers famously says just about every other day whenever he answers a question like this, “It depends.” However, before I dive into all of the prevarications


What’s This?

Thanks so much for sending over the pictures, they are very helpful. Even though it’s impossible for me to diagnose down to the organism just based on images, I’d wager you’ve got


Wine Flower

I agree with your local winery supply store employee; it’s most likely a surface yeast or “flor” yeast of some kind, forming a floating plaque on top of your wine. Sometimes referred


One Step Cleaning

One Step is a proprietary cleaning (and somewhat sanitizing) solution that is a secret formula; even the Wine Wizard will never know exactly what it’s made out of. From what I can


Refractometer vs. Hydrometer

That is a great question. The “simple” answer is that no, hydrometry and refractometry are not interchangeable and that you shouldn’t try to use a refractometer during active fermentation. Refractometry relies on


Blending Stuck Wine

That’s too bad that you had some stuck fermentations. It’s probable that your yeast died out due to alcohol toxicity resulting from those high brixes. Next time make sure you’re adding enough


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