Your Winemaking Educational Source
Wine chemistry is a complex subject. There are so many things to measure, balance, and think about that it’s hard to know when to do what and decide what’s really important. To help us navigate this complex subject Holly Wells and John Garlich of BookCliff Vineyards have come on the show to walk us though the entire wine making process… from a chemistry perspective. Continue reading “Wine Making Chemistry with Bookcliff Vineyards – WMA015”
The best way to improve upon a skill, winemaking included, is through personal experience. The second best way is by learning through others experiences. In this episode I’ve got a great interview with winemaker Jason Phelps where he shares many lessons learned through his ten years of wine making experience.
You’ll hear about wines that went well and won medals, wines that didn’t go so well and had to be poured out, and what he learned by competing and judging winemaking competitions.
So grab a notebook and a glass of wine for this episode. You’ll learn a lot but you’ll also be challenged to consider how you view your wine and how you make it. I know I came away from this interview needing to reflect on some of my own views and reconsider what direction to take my own wines.
Jason was kind enough to weigh in on several questions that came in from members of the Winemaker’s Academy Facebook group (email me for more information on that).
There are many different styles of corkers out there. What differentiates them from one another, beyond price, is how easy it is to insert a cork. Smaller, less expensive corkers are convenient for those reasons, however, they often don’t provide the mechanical advantage needed to make it an “easy to use” corker.
In this episode you’ll get introduced to the most popular amateur wine making corkers. I’ve covered how they work, how much they cost, and which ones require the use of a mallet to use. Additionally, you’ll get introduced the both the mechanical and vacuum corkers that small wineries use. Continue reading “Winemaking Corkers – WMA013”
Bottling is the final step in the wine making process (aside from aging). If done correctly your wine will be protected from oxygen and spoilage preserving your wine to enjoy for possible years to come.
In this episode I will go through the entire bottling process. The first thing covered is determining when to bottle which is equally as important as knowing how to bottle your wine. From there you’ll learn about cleaning and sanitizing bottles, back sweetening, bottle filler options, and much more. Continue reading “How to Bottle Your Wine – WMA012”
There are a lot of clarifiers out there. But how do they work? Is there one that is better than the rest These questions and more will be addressed in this podcast episode.
While not always completely necessary clarifiers have become a key component of the modern wine maker’s repertoire of tools used to craft a quality wine. You do have to be careful with them though because if you over do it you could strip out more than just the cloudiness. The trick is to use just enough to get the job done and no more. Continue reading “How Wine Clarifiers Work – WMA011”