Smart Winemaking

Making wine at home can save you a lot of money, is a great way pass the time while social distancing. Traditionally wine is made from...

Malolactic fermentation (MLF) is a microbial process that can play a tremendous role in the taste, smell and...

When making wine from grapes, you are often presented with many twists and turns. If the wine veers off course too far and cannot be steere

Sulfur Dioxide, also known as "sulfite" or SO2 is a commonly misrepresented, yet critical component of wine. In nature, SO2 can occurs as a

Why do you rack your wine? Over time fruit particles and dead yeast cells will settle out of the wine and pile up on the bottom of your con

As the wine harvest approaches, I like to stock up on any items needed to get my fermentation off to a healthy start. You don't want to be

Kegging is generally associated with home brewers, but can also be incredibly useful to winemakers. For the home winemaker, Cornelius (“Corny”) kegs are gen...

A primary fermenter does not need to be fancy or expensive, but does need to accommodate the style and the volume of wine that you will be

Deciding when to pick grapes for wine can be challenging. There are many factors involved, but luckily two of the most important are easy to measure; sugar ...

If you are getting started in winemaking, you may notice that nearly any set of instructions involves the addition of both potassium metabisulfite and potass...

The process for making dry red wine from grapes substantially differs from that of other types of wines or ciders. Rather than pressing the grapes before fe...

Like it or not, 2018 may very well be the year of Rosé style wine. Rosé wine is a pink wine that is made from red wine grapes, with the skins only contribut...

The sediment that falls out of suspension in a wine is referred to as the lees. Managing these lees properly can have a great deal if influence on the quali...

Winemaking is a great hobby but like most great hobbies it involves a large amount of equipment. There is an almost unlimited range of gadgets and helpful l...

One metric that high quality red wines are often measured on is color. The ultimate goal is to achieve a deep, rich purple but this can prove more difficult...

Many wines will improve with time, even in the bottle. Young red wines can be overly harsh but with some time in the bottle a pleasant evolution will take p...

Winemakers have long been using oak barrels for winemaking, but in recent decades oak alternatives become widely used with some advantages and disadvantages....

The fermentation temperature of your wine can have a tremendous effect on the flavor and aroma profile. Immediately after harvesting white grapes, they are ...

Sweetening homemade wine is easy but if done incorrectly can lead to carbonated wine, blown off corks, or worse... blown up bottles and a huge mess. Most cl...

What happens in the first weeks of a wine's life can be the most impactful on the finished outcome. Red wines are skin fermented which gives them their colo...