Writer: Alison Crowe

For those of our fellow grape nuts who don’t know, bulk aging refers to aging wines in vessels other than the final bottle whereas bottle aging refers to wines aged in their

Norton is a fun variety of red wine to make and certainly is a big favorite in the Midwest. I’ve tried some good Nortons over the years and I can share your

It’s hard to say “what went wrong” in this situation as the life of every wine is a fog of carefully guarded secrets that even my scrying glass can’t penetrate. However, the

Winemaking, like baking bread or beer brewing, is one of humankind’s most ancient food-manufacturing processes. And, just as baking and brewing leave behind cereal stalks and spent grain, winemaking produces one of

Though making fruit-based wine is a little different from making grape-based wine, you always want to make sure you’ve got enough sugar, acid, tannin and aromatic and flavor compounds to result in

Coffee wine, eh? I’ve heard of using strong black tea as a tannin additive and of using coffee in brewing recipes for a super-charged stout but I’ve never heard of making coffee

Congrats on embarking on the ever-fascinating and (just as often) maddening adventure of using oak in home winemaking! You’ve discovered what many of your predecessors already have — that it is sometimes

The short answer to your question is: 0.45 micron nominal filter pads are the industry standard for “sterile” filtration. These pads prevent all yeast and bacteria from getting through. So, if you

Congratulations for tackling one of the most interesting and esoteric of brews, the braggot (also spelled braggott or bragawd). A beverage that combines what some would say the best of what mead

Like you, many commercial wineries also feel that big bottles make great gifts. One can often see what the industry calls “large formats” displayed in restaurants that have done exceptionally well selling

Certainly, do put that extra fridge to good use and by all means store some of your collection in it! Extra refrigeration is a boon to just about any winemaker, wine collector,

The “red wine headache” is one of those wine questions that lies somewhere between legend and reality. However, there are some real answers. I’ll lay them out and you can decide for

If you use a 1-5 gallon (3.8–19 L) yeast packet for 1 gallon as opposed to 5 gallons, it is likely that your fermentation will proceed faster, have a more yeasty aroma

Wine Wizard answers: Synthetic corks are becoming more and more popular as commercial and home winemakers alike seek to avoid the 5 to 15 percent of bottles that can be ruined due

I firmly believe that — much like Sauternes and foie gras, Port and blue cheese — oak chips and cheese cloth were always destined for each other. Many winemakers, from purveyors of

My, my, my! I sincerely hope you are joking about that lawsuit — first, because I certainly hope you are under no impending financial harm, but also because I’d assume no home

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the early days of the California wine industry, growers found that Zinfandel was a good “workhorse” grape that did well in a variety of climates and that could, under hot and dry conditions, be forced to accrue a high concentration of sugar.