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My wife and I drink wine almost every night. A bottle usually lasts the 2 of us 2 days. So each of us drinks about 1/4 bottle per night. Truthfully, I'm bigger and thirstier than she is, so my 1/4 bottle is probably bigger than her 1/4 bottle!

OK thanks NorCal. I hate the idea of having to add acid anyway. I'll probably just let it be what it wants to be. The tartrate crystals still have me scratching my head though. The only thing I did differently was I used OptiRed for the first time ever. I don't see how that could cause the...

Both buckets of Marquette did a strange thing this year - As I was racking them after primary fermentation, I noticed they both threw off what look like tartrate crystals on the sides of the buckets. Quite a lot of it, actually. Even stranger, one yeast appeared to throw more crystals than the...

I think you said you have "enough" alcohol, but I'm wondering if you might want to tease that statement apart a little bit. Arguably the most important component of a wine's "body" is good old fashioned alcohol. You could try adding a little sugar to nudge the finished alcohol content up a bit...

Thanks for the suggestions all. So I guess I'm going to step feed and skip fortification. Yes, the wine does indeed have a rosé color to it. Or to be more precise, it currently has a beautiful candy-cane red color, which is what got me thinking about Christmas wine. I know this color will...

Yup, yeast nutrient is in there already. So step feeding increases alcohol tolerance? Kinda like the frog in boiling water? I think I see where you're coming from with the oak, that the excess tannin may get in the way of the fruit. Makes sense now that I think about it. I'd hate to over...

Thanks salcoco, that makes sense about the step feeding. I used RC212 yeast, which I see has an alcohol tolerance of 16%. I actually have a packet of EC1118 on hand. Maybe I can throw that in too? The more the merrier, right? I'm curious what you mean about oak taking away the flavor...

So I'm trying to craft a very small batch of sweet wine and have it ready by this Christmas. I've never done a dessert wine before so I'm wondering if those of you with more experience in the matter can help me guide it down the right path. A little more info: This past weekend we picked up 8...

Good suggestion - the last thing I would want would be "water" backing up into the sink!

That Simer pump looks like a great solution - thanks for the tip Fred! I'm definitely getting tired of running equipment up and down the stairs to wash it in the kitchen!

For those of you lucky enough to have sinks in your basement wineries - how did you plumb the drain line? Most basement sinks would be lower in elevation than the house's septic pipes, so I assume you'd have to have some sort of pump to move wash water up to the pipes, right?

You may have seen my post on Marquette acid strategy. I tried the double salt technique you mention above last year with my Marquette and found it difficult and messy. And to boot, the pH ended up being on the high side while the TA is still high too. So maybe consider your mistake a blessing...

Cool, thanks for confirming!

I may have found the answer to my 2nd question. From a conversation on a different board: "No yeast can convert malic to lactic acid. That would be MLF, and only malolactic bacteria can do that. 71B-1122 and Lallemand SVG convert malic acid into ethanol and CO2. The net result is simply a...

Thanks ibglowin. Any advice about neutralization (CACO3 or KHCO3)? I've never used KHCO3 before. I have used CACO3 with the double salt technique, but that was messy and frankly a pain in the rear. As I understand it, the point of the double salt technique is to preferentially get rid of...

My 50 Marquette vines are in their 2nd year and will hopefully yield a crop next year. They seem to be doing well on our sunny, south facing hill side. The only major problem has been Japanese Beetles, which I took care of with a bit of Sevin. Last year, while waiting for our vines to grow...

Thanks for the info, winojoe. From what I can tell, MA seems to be a bit more lenient - or at least I haven't encountered any resistance so far at the local level. Our town seems to encourage it, actually. We'll see when it gets to the state level but I don't know that yet because the state...

Sounds like good advice, thanks Salcoco. I like the idea of using square footage. That makes things nice and simple.

OK thanks - how did you define the property? In our case it would be a portion of our basement. Just describe it as "Basement?"

So I'm almost ready to submit our TTB application. I just got off the phone with the TTB, who, by the way, have always been very courteous and helpful each time I called. Anyway, the representative I spoke with told me that in addition to the other documents I will need to upload, I will also...