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I purchased some commercial MLF bacteria to inoculate my Frontenac because it was so acidic. I did 5 gallons with MLF, and 3 gallons I'm leaving alone to see how it behaves (no SO2 up to this point but so far MLF hasn't really occurred naturally, which is surprising because all of my cider...

Yup. The wine tastes great. The beginning TA was 8.1 so it would be reasonable to think that tartrate would precipitate out. I always thought that cold stabilization was needed to precipitate out the crystals. I guess not

Fascinating. I've never seen it in sheets like this. Thanks

I racked my Aromella today, which is it's first racking after primary. As I was rinsing the carboy, I noticed these hard flakes in the bottom. You can see in one photo that it actually molded to the shape of the carboy. I have no idea what this is. I thought maybe it is potassium bitartrate but...

Just to make sure you have a full picture, what was your soil salinity levels? If a little high I would check your irrigation water as well. Saline water can wreak all kinds of havoc on soil makeup and subsequently grape vigor. Since you most likely irrigate regularly and is something you add to...

For my Cider, it was at about 5% total volume, so not very much to add quite a bit of depth. For my grape/apple blend it was even lower at about 1%. Steam juicing makes a really concentrated juice.

Similar to prairie fire, I’ve used plumleaf crabapple. Shake the hell out of the tree over a tarp and harvest that way (from any one of your random neighbors that planted one of these trees for the blossoms). I used a steam juicer to extract the juice since they are so dense and low juice but...

I know the flavor you are talking about - it's not always bad but sometimes it's undrinkable. I did a road trip around Lake Michigan and tried a bunch of wines from different wineries and I had some truly lousy 'norther hybrid' wines that I had to dump. However, Northern Sun Winery in Bark River...

I racked the Frontenac again yesterday (still some junk in there from pressing) and gave it a taste. MLF is well on its way and the wine tastes surprisingly good! I see the potential. It reminds me a lot of a more red fruit forward Syrah. Really smooth but bright. Exciting stuff.

Just aerating a lot can often help the smell as well. Just do a violent racking that makes lots of bubbles (I have done this to great success) or else get one of the drill powered aerators at a brew shop. If that doesn't work, then I'd move to chemical means (as someone who prefers...

I'm realizing that WSU is probably Washington state university. For those interested: Grapevine Cold Hardiness | WSU Viticulture and Enology | Washington State University

Super cool! I’ll look into that. That’s very cool to know that there’s another local resource.

I’ve been wanting a “bad wine” tasting too! I mean, over the years I’ve been able to pick out different flavors and accidentally oxidize unfinished bottles but I can’t put a name to it all. I’ll have to look at WSU. I have always just defaulted to USU and maybe I haven’t searched broadly...

I'm definitely interested in how your Malbec and Tempranillo turn out. I'm a big Tempranillo fan and I'd love to grow it if it will ripen. I'll be waiting eagerly for tasting notes in..oh a year :)

@Brent2489 You would probably not be able to plant any grapes with a rating of hardiness zone 6 and above. We can mostly get away with it in SLC if there isn't a chance for a cold pool or a favorable micro climate. It's not necessarily the single or couple day cold snaps its more about the long...

Ok. TA results are in. I did them this morning Aromella 8.0g/L Frontenac 7.9 g/L A little high in Acid for the Frontenac but I'm planning full MLF and most likely light toast oak. We'll see how it goes! Punch down this morning is already off-gassing quite a bit so fermentation is happily...

I spent the morning harvesting at the Thanksgiving Point teaching garden that is run by our local ag University extension. They don't have too many interesting wine grapes but these two are high my list of "I'd like to try that". So, here we go. Beautiful Aromella clusters. Stunning flavor...

When I make cider from random neighborhood trees that haven't been sprayed with pesticide (all Apples will have coddling moth damage in Utah - and most of North America AFAIK), I basically do A, B, C above with A being my own apples that I take care of and B and C being whatever I get from...

I made the frozen bucket Pinot Noir from MoreWine.com, which is, as far as I can tell, the exact same as the GrapesForWine frozen must. It turned out remarkably well. The frozen buckets are a great price for the almost full experience of working with fresh, bulk grapes when fresh grapes aren't...

Does anyone have contacts in Idaho or Colorado? I live in Utah and I'm going to hit up the 5 or so vineyards in Utah this year but I'm curious about those regions that are slightly closer than California/Oregon. Is there anything in Nevada? Searching is surprisingly difficult. This is a great...