2012 Winemaking Resolutions

It’s the first of the year and for the past several years I’ve made some winemaking resolutions. Last year I was three for four only failing on the resolution to harvest grapes grown at my house. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong including birds and rain prior to, during and after harvest time. […]

Reflections on 2011 Winemaking Resolutions

On this last day of the year, it is time to reflect on how I did with my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions. In early January of 2011 I had four resolutions. Here are the resolutions and comments.

1. Learn to clarify, filter and sweeten the Muscat wine prior to bottling. Well we posted a question […]

An Impressive Wine Kit

At the urging of another wine writer, I decided to once again give a kit wine a try. My first kit wine attempt was a Cabernet Sauvignon. Since then I’ve come to discover, that for me a red wine needs to be made with grapes and kit red wines or juice don’t measure up to […]

The Strongest Reason to Filter

Earlier this year we bottled a Muscat that Kathy made. Since we do not have a filter, the wine was racked a few times and appeared clear. Now that it has cellared a few months, we tried some of it. We enjoyed the taste and aroma, however there is a residue and after pouring a […]

Racking the Peach Wine

Kathy’s peach wine has been sitting quietly clearing nicely. We decided to rack it off the lees today. The aroma prior to racking reminded me of aromas in the kitchen when Kathy bakes bread. There was an yeasty aroma from the wine. Later we place a small amount in a wine glass. At first the […]

Stopping Yeast from Reproducing and Clarifying

We returned from Washington and Oregon to find our peach wine and Sauvignon Blanc clearing nicely. However the directions for the Sauvignon Blanc had us stir the wine including the sediment. During this stirring there was a lot of dissolved carbon dioxide that foamed up. When we made our less than a gallon of Niagara […]

Racking the Peach Wine, Again

Since we are going to travel for a few weeks we decided to rack the peach wine. The wine was in a 3-gallon carboy, a half-gallon carboy and a 750 ml decanter. Both the decanter and the half gallon carboy had about an inch of sediment and dead yeast cells at the bottom. The 3-gallon […]

Racking the Peach Wine

Since the bubbling in the airlock was significantly slower than a couple days ago, we decided to rack the peach wine into a carboy. First Kathy gathered the floating peaches and put them in a cheesecloth. I’ll get back to this later. Then we measured the specific gravity of the wine at 1.010. It has […]

Keeping an Eye on Fermentation

Both the peach wine and Sauvignon Blanc are in primary fermenters with an airlock. It’s interesting to note that I’m drawn to observe the bubbling in the airlock. One might think that is a boring activity, however, I find it fascinating to stare at bubbles being released. The Sauvignon Blanc was the first to begin […]

Kit Wine, One More Try

After making wine from juice and grapes both at home and at wineries, making another wine from a kit seems like a step backward. On the negative side, I don’t like the “kit wine taste” that I often pick up. So I decided to only look at higher quality kits. Since I only want to […]