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The LaCrosse wine makers are having a picking event this weekend. A local winery is planning on having picking crews tomorrow, ?whites? Feels late, Briana has turned foxy and Edelweiss has been falling off vine. Apple is also falling. Have cleaned up eight bushels off two trees. What will I...

welcome to WMT , , , , hard ciders yum. The grapes to grow are the ones which your neighbors found suitable. The longer is am in this the more I like apple. There is enough genetics available that one can build soft tannins (grape skin tannin taste) or harsh tannin (grape seed and stem...

The expanded metal I see at Lowe’s is a galvanized steel. On a one time I might use galvanized but not long term. Zinc is not a good additive in wine or basically all food products. The iron under the zinc will act as a catalyst for oxidation chemistry. There also is aluminum expanded metal...

welcome to WMT a few extra lessons * patience, try half of what you expected and recheck * taste the grapes as you pick, you will quickly learn sweetness versus color, * pH 3.2 isn’t that bad if you are in the Midwest, * total acidity controls taste more than pH, * numbers are a guideline...

welcome to WMT Reused screw top bottles are basically as good as common grade corks. They will give one advantage, we can reduce the head space to 1 to 1.5cm. (Less oxygen). They have a disadvantage in that the second time they are used they will have conformed to a different shape so some...

Birds and yellow jacket wasps invade grapes because they are ripe enough to taste good. Watching the local winery they are predicting the first pickling starts in about a week. (Wisconsin crop) Watching the local winery they never have grapes ready to pick on Friday, Saturday and Sunday...

An observation as a contest wine judge, there are many wines folks make which have some bubbles on the edge of the glass. ,,, About half of them. I never dock a clear wine with some bubbles that just cling to the glass. There are few wines which have active froth, like champagne. About 1 in...

LaCrescent is a Minnesota hybrid, this means that it has some Vinifera and some American (Labrusca? Ripaira?) genetics. If this variety is extremely ripe it will have a foxy flavor and possibly bitter flavor notes (due to flavor oils). In the Midwest some growers deal with this by picking as...

What is your pH? (pH paper in the 3 to 4 range is useful or a pH meter) If your pH is 3.5 or above you are risking a wild lactic bacteria fermentation. If under 3.2 and you add meta you should be safe. Cider and wine are a preservative system. Have you considered sweetening with frozen...

? what pH ? Wine is a multiple variable preservative system. This means that EC1118 will perform better at pH 3.5 than at 3.2. If you are at pH 3.0 it will get stuck at a lower alcohol and if 2.8 a still lower alcohol. Industry finds where these limits are by trial, I haven’t seen any...

I also have wondered how (& why) resistant a straight mead is. I don’t remember anything in Schram which delves into that type of chemistry. The implied conclusion in Schram and others is that there are molecules in honey that are antioxidants which isn’t too surprising since it is a natural...

If you have aronia (choke berry) about 1% would make a nice red or 1/2% a rose. I use black raspberry up to 5% for color. Mulberry is an intense color better than raspberry.

Synthetic corks are constructed to mimic natural cork oxygen exchange. The common grade is rated at 5 mg oxygen per year. The Reserva line is lower / for long term storage. The AWRI did some oxygen vs closure work which encouraged most of that production area to switch to aluminum caps which...

Minerals can deposit on glass creating a pearly look. I use glass that has gone through a soak with acid for a week followed with a detergent cleaner. It is good enough to accurately rack off lees.

Grenache from buckets is a nice in between polyphenol juice. As such I expect it to oxidize more than a heavy tannin Sarah and a low tannin Briana. , , , ie tannin is the variable. We have low flavor tannins as Blanc Soft and astringent flavor tannins as chestnut and oak flavor tannins. ...

welcome to WMT You should have an easier time growing than us in high humidity country.

The ten liter glass made it home in a suitcase with several bottles of wine and other liquids WHEW If I would have had a car to explore in other neighborhoods I would have hunted for more in between carboys.

A chamber was created with PVC and silicone gaskets Chamber is placed on the bottle A cork is put in a cone Vacuum is pulled Cork is inserted There are several mentions of this on WMT. Steve posted the article about it that was in Winemaker Magazine

Welcome to WMT Peach as a fruit wine has low tannin content. It can suffer from short shelf life / oxidation. With this years wine you could add an astringent tannin as chestnut or one of the low flavor tannins as blanc soft. The Scott Labs catalog is a good place to see the choices. On...

* For where you are now, if you have had a week go by the oxygen in the ullage has reacted with chemicals in the wine and the batch is experiencing “bottle shock”. To open each bottle then flush would increase what is called total package oxygen. * Flushing with argon is a mixing activity...