Writer: Dawson Raspuzzi

The idea that making a great tasting wine from a kit is simple if you follow the directions isn’t wrong, though there is often a bit more to it in order to make a wine worthy of winning a gold medal. Three acclaimed amateur winemakers share their advice for making a red wine from a kit that will stand out in competition and at the dinner table.

If you don’t have a barrel to put your wine in, then put a barrel alternative in your wine. Two experts share advice for getting the most from chips, cubes, spirals, and other alternatives.

Two pros share why they prefer whole cluster fermentations for certain varieties, the impact it has, and considerations home winemakers should make if they plan to forgo the crush.

Almost all winemakers use oak barrels for aging red and some white wines, as has been the case for ages. However, if you go back far enough, other woods were once common. Even today there are some winemakers who utilize unique woods that bring different characteristics to a wine. This seems like an area ideal for adventurous home winemakers working with smaller batch sizes, less pressure from market demand, and more freedom and flexibility to experiment. To help get us started, we found two pros with experience in this realm and asked for advice.

Get some pointers on working with the stylistically diverse Riesling grape, a cool-climate loving noble variety.

Wine blends are most often created after fermenting each variety
separately. However, that isn’t the only way to do it. Some wine-makers choose to co-ferment certain varieties together, believing this approach adds to the complexity of the resulting wine. Get tips on co-fermentation from three pros who endorse the benefits.

Three pros making high-end red Bordeaux-style blends share their advice on crafting these complex, elegant wines.

Following the directions that come with your wine kit will result in very good wine, but sometimes experimenting is part of the fun. Three award-winning winemakers share how they go about making adjustments to dessert wine kits — a category of wine that works well with fortification and other tweaks.

Fall is here and there is an abundance of apples available and ready to be fermented. Three experts share advice for three different types of hard ciders (fruited, spiced, and hopped) so that you can try something different this year.

Do you whole-cluster press? Separate free-run juice and press fractions? Maximize juice collection through high pressure? There are a lot of decisions to make while pressing that will have a big impact on the final outcome of your wine. We put the squeeze on three pro winemakers to share their pressing tips.

When you want to make wines from grapes but it isn’t harvest season, one option home winemakers have is purchasing buckets of frozen must or juice. Three industry experts share their coolest tips.

Hybrid grapes pose certain challenges to winemakers including higher acidity and lower tannins. Three cool-climate winemakers share their advice to create a balanced wine from these grapes.

Wine isn’t just the best beverage to pair with food, it’s also great to use as an ingredient in meals. With that in mind, we asked some experts in the kitchen for their advice when it comes to cooking with wine. White, red, or other, wines always have a place in the kitchen.

Backsweetening is a popular method to balance and bring out the fruit character in fruit wines. We enlist two experts to share their tips to backsweetening success.

Three North American winemakers share their best advice for blending red Italian varieties that are often lesser known and less common in the New World. These grapes bring their own challenges, but

Want to try something new between grape harvest seasons? How about trying your hand at making mead, a wine made from honey. Meads come in many different forms — from dry to

A grape’s tannin structure is impacted by varietal, terroir, and growing conditions. Sometimes, grapes lack the tannins desired, and when that happens winemakers have the option of techniques to maximize extraction, adding

They say winemaking is part science, part art. That expression may ring most true when it comes to fermenting red wines. While there have been numerous studies and much research regarding the

The benefits of cold soaking are debated among winemakers, but those who subscribe to the technique of keeping (usually red) grapes cool for a few days prior to fermentation swear by it.

The summer and fall are when most of the action happens in the vineyard as leaves are thinned and grapes ripen on their journey to be turned into wine. But none of

Malbec makes great varietal wines (check out the feature on page 40 for advice on this approach), but is also commonly used as a blending component, specifically for Bordeaux-style blends. In Bordeaux,

Whether you are new to the winemaking hobby or looking to supplement your grape winemaking during the off-season, making wine from a kit results in great tasting wine in less time and

As harvest kicks into full swing it is important for winemakers to know the right questions to ask and things to look for when purchasing grapes for this year’s fermentations. Get that

While none of the three panelists for this “Tips from the Pros” column are actually pros, their knowledge is second to none. We’ve accumulated three “Best of Show” winners from the 2019

Country wines made with multiple fruit varieties can be blended prior to fermentation or after. Learn how two professional winemakers decide when to blend, as well as the other considerations they account for when making these lovely summer sippers.