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Thanks SG! Fixed

Hi gang, Some of my research into home winemaking has been published in Ethnologie francaise - "Making homemade wine, online". The link is below but you probably won't be able to access it unless you have university login credentials- if you are interested, you can message me here or email me at...

On Saturday the winemaking club picked Pinot Noir & Chardonnay in the Adelaide Hills - a bit cooler up there, so perfect for those varieties. Picked at about 11.2 Baume. Bunch pressed, added pectinase, kmeta and gelatin. This is going to be a champagne-style sparkling wine. Also ran the...

Harvest is pretty much on time this year. It has been a slightly milder summer than usual here - thanks mostly to La Nina effect in the Pacific I think. Glad to avoid all the heat waves and fires this time around (but it's a different story over in Western Australia). Growing conditions have...

That looks beautiful! But I can see why you'd be ready for spring to arrive ...

The Blewitt Springs shiraz is a bit more tannic and flavoursome than the Aldinga - different parts of McLaren Vale. Blewitt Springs ripened a week later at 13.8 Baume. Pressed the Aldinga after 5 days on skins. Both fermented with Lalvin Rhone 2226 yeast. This coming Saturday we will be...

I've only made mead a couple of times but one key difference is that the sugars in honey take ages to ferment. Be prepared to let it sit for a long time before it's ready to drink.

in some cases, definitely. These days I find I can really taste it when a wine has too much sulfite (and also if it's over oaked) and in both of these instances it stuffs around with my body. But there's plenty of good quality commercial wines that use minimal sulfites and not much else in...

Blewitt Springs in the McLaren Vale region (just south of Adelaide) Shiraz picking

Here in Australia they're only just starting the vaccine rollout to frontline workers etc. But we've been EXTREMELY lucky with keeping the virus at bay (well, a combination of luck and good public policy) .. only a few sporadic cases in recent months of it getting out into the community. I think...

Converted to Fahrenheit for our American friends .. :cool: (but seriously, we've been seeing the news from Texas here and it looks completely horrendous, take care all!)

It's the end of summer so that can only mean one thing... vintage time. I've got involved with a local amateur winemakers' club in Adelaide and am part of a syndicate making a few different wines ... shiraz from two different vineyards in McLaren Vale, and a sparkling pinot noir / chardonnay...

I can vouch for this! Great drop - and thanks again for the bottle swap. Looking forward to hearing about the progress. I have done the 'ice bottle' method in the past, definitely preferable to having a ferment run too hot.

I haven't closed it off yet ... the more the merrier! 😎 Before too long I'll provide some of the raw findings here.

Hey @vacuumpumpman , do you have an estimate of shipping cost to Australia?

Thanks Skashoon! Molly Dooker are just 40 mins down the road from me, in McLaren Vale. Sarah & Sparky divorced and Sarah bought out the business. Shiraz really likes the classic 'Mediterranean' climate so cool wet winters and hot dry summers, basically treat em mean to concentrate the flavours...

My brother-in-law is buying a house with some established Shiraz vines in the backyard .. he's not even into wine so I put my hand up to look after the vines and, of course, take the grapes for my own nefarious purposes! I haven't seen the place in person but judging from the real estate photos...

I've decided to add another 150g of berries during primary (SG now down to about 1.060). The colour is getting really nice, rich & dark, and the blackberry smell is definitely coming through. Will make a judgement call when fermented dry as to whether to add more fruit during secondary, or just...

Cheers! I have decided to put a miniscule amount of fresh blackberries in primary - 100g for 10L (about 2.5 gallons) of must. Basically seeing how much colour gets extracted and whether there's much flavour from them to speak of after primary fermentation. Then I will add frozen blackberries to...

It's got a really intense floral flavour, almost spicy / bitter .. I hated it as a kid (spent part of my childhood in Tasmania and we had it pretty regularly because mum & dad loved it) but now I can appreciate it and would certainly want to give it a go as a mead.