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Writer: Bob Peak

107 result(s).

Maintaining a Home Wine Cellar

Here are some tips and suggestions on cellaring your homemade wine and maintaining the cellar itself. The cellar “The cellar” has a wide range of interpretations for home winemakers. If you have


Bulk Wine Aging

There is more to cellaring bulk wine than meets the eye. Throughout the aging process, the winemaker is on a tightrope walk between intervening to prevent and correct problems while remaining relaxed enough to let good wine evolve naturally.


Bottling Your Wine

As renowned French wine scientist Emile Peynaud wrote, “Bottling is a very stressful operation for a wine and the enological problems it causes are numerous: Considerable oxygen uptake, keeping out microorganisms and


Storing Wine Ingredients

Make wine at home for a few years and you will probably accumulate a lot of stuff. Pieces of equipment join the collection as the needs and resources come up. Consumable supplies


Balancing Fruit and Sugar in Country Wines

Bob Peak digs into how much sugar is needed to get the desired alcohol level, and how much fruit is needed to offer a pleasing profile and aroma, flavor, and appearance when making country wines.


Choosing and Using a Wine Pump

Many a home winery gets by just fine with no pump at all. If your hobby grows, though, you may find that many routine tasks are made simpler with the help of


Oxygen Reduction in Winemaking

Oxidation gets a lot of attention in winemaking — and it should! WineMaker magazine has covered oxidation issues from several different angles over the past few years. While some presence of oxygen


Super Blends

One group of internationally famous wines — the Super Tuscans — has come to represent revolutionary change in the wine world in the last few decades. After long-held traditional principles and practices


Small Space Winemaking Techniques

In large wineries, functional spaces are usually separated. There may be a crush pad, one or more fermentation rooms, and a cellar or cave for barrel aging. Most of us at home


Restart Stuck Fermentations

All home winemakers wish — and strive — for fermentations that go smoothly and completely to the desired finish, usually dry wine. When things go wrong, a frequent problem is a stuck


Post-Fermentation Wine Adjustments

Our job isn’t finished when fermentation is over. With many wines, especially reds, you may want to go ahead and do a malolactic (ML) fermentation as well. And during cellaring you need


Offbeat Reds

Getting sick of the same old Cab? Try a red wine that’s more out of the mainstream, like Carménère, Charbono, Dolcetto, Montepulciano, or Tinta Cão.


Making White Wines from Red Grapes

As I started working on this story, a surprising question occurred to me: “What makes wine white?” “The color” seems obvious when you look at a restaurant wine list or walk up


Better White Blends

There are lots of reasons to try blending white wines, such as adding complexity, correcting a deficiency, or simply making something fun and new. Find out more about which white grapes work well together, and how to plan the perfect blend.


Degassing Wine Techniques

Sure, some wines are supposed to be carbonated, but most aren’t. To avoid unwanted bubbles in your table wines, you need to degas your wine. Learn how, and when, to do it so you never pour an unexpected bottle of fizzy wine again.


Creating Balanced Wine

There are many components in wine that all need to work together to create balance. Find out how to juggle acidity, alcohol, residual sugar, tannins, color, flavor components, and more.


Sugar and Acid Wine Adjustments

We’d all love to make wine from the perfect grapes picked with ideal sugars, acidity, and pH. Unfortunately, often due to reasons beyond our control, that is not always how grapes arrive at the home winery. In that case, the winemaker has a number of decisions that must be made.


Home Winemaking Quality Control

When the editors at WineMaker suggested quality control (QC) for a story, I was delighted to take it on. I have a long personal and professional history with QC and it infuses


Winemaking Outside of Harvest

Lots of home winemakers concentrate their efforts in the harvest months using seasonally available just-picked wine grapes. But sometimes a home winemaker wants to do something else. Maybe you didn’t make enough wine in harvest season. Or maybe you just want an adult beverage that doesn’t line up with the local seasons. Whatever the motivation, there are several techniques for out-of-season wine.


Using Enzymes in Country Wines

Country fruit wines can be quite difficult to achieve the desired color, aroma, and clarity levels. Here is a look at the various enzymes typically used in grape winemaking that can also be used in fruit wines.


20 Home Winemaking Troubleshooting Tips

In a notebook of fermentation hobby records, I have a lab report dated November 3, 1998. That soil pre-plant analysis from Fruit Growers Laboratory marked my start 20 years ago in becoming


Special Purpose Wine Yeasts

Yeast are fairly simple, single-celled organisms. But their diversity, functionality, and ability to adapt is why humans, and especially winemakers love these fungi so much. Bob Peak takes us through several strains that winemakers should know are available.


Enzymes for Hobbyists

When pioneers of winemaking like Louis Pasteur or André Tchelistcheff are mentioned, James B. Sumner is often overlooked. Nonetheless, this Nobel-prize-winning chemist (1946) set in motion the entire scientific field for today’s


White Wine Case Study

Take a closer look at the impact ripeness, yeast selection, oaking, enzymes, and other winemaking decisions has on the final wine.


Using Yeast Nutrients

One of the most important conditions for your yeast to thrive is an abundance of nutrients. If the must doesn’t provide enough naturally, it’s time to add yeast nutrients. Use these tips to know when it’s time to add nutrients, and what types your yeast need to complete a successful fermentation.


107 result(s) found.