Ever mistaken White Zinfandel for a white wine? Or been lost while trying to navigate a tricky wine list? We’ve all been there. After all, even the most seasoned wine pros once knew nada. It can take years to master the complex world of vino, and yes, even experts have robust libraries filled with dogeared copies of favorite wine reference books.
The sweet, nutrient-rich must is an ideal medium for growing diverse species of yeast during the fermentation process. Naturally present yeast may include the familiar Saccharomyces, found in bread and beer, as well as more exotic genera. As a result, the beginning of fermentation involves a lot of biodiversity, with many different types of yeast competing for resources.
Every mid-September through early October, one of the common sights in vineyards in Lodi is pickers loading grapes into 40-pound lug boxes. Next to the vines, the pickers weigh each lug box on scales in order to be as precise as possible. At the edge of the vineyards, on the side of the road, the lugs are then emptied into colorful wooden boxes by grape packers.
Making wine at home can be a wonderful experience and a source of great pride. However, most vintners don’t talk about the less glamorous side of winemaking: How to clean and sterilize wine making equipment.
Winemaking has been around for thousands of years. In its basic form, wine making is a natural process that requires very little human intervention. Mother Nature provides everything that is needed to make wine; it is up to humans to embellish, improve, or totally obliterate what nature has provided, to which anyone with extensive wine tasting experience can attest.
It seems as though when we think of home winemaking, we think of grapes. What about wines made from fruits other than grapes? Since the development of home winemaking as a hobby, it has become very easy for the individual home wine maker to make wines from affordable fresh fruits of the garden variety. And, don’t equate these wines to back-shed hooch!
Choosing the best wine making kits for beginners can be tricky. There are a lot of confusing options to choose from. It can be hard knowing if you will have all the materials you need to make great tasting homemade wine. This guide will help you understand the three basic types of wine making kits, what’s included in each kind of kit, and which ones are best for beginners.
Sooner or later, if you make wine at home, you are going to do some chemical analysis. There are some tests that are absolutely essential to any complete winemaking program, others that are informative but optional, and some that are mostly curiosities. Among all the tests, some of the equipment is required, some of it can be done without, and some of it goes on the birthday wish list for someone else to buy for you.
Why is pH important? The pH of juice or wine is important to know as it plays a critical role in many aspects of winemaking, in particular wine stability. Boulton et al. (1996) writes that pH influences microbiological stability, affects the equilibrium of tartrate salts, determines the effectiveness of sulfur dioxide and enzyme additions, influences the solubility of proteins and effectiveness of bentonite and affects red wine color and oxidative and browning reactions.
After some convenience items like a racking cane and a wine thief are added to your winemaking equipment arsenal, a quality pH meter should be one of your next investments. Being able to get an accurate read on where your wine’s pH lands on the spectrum has huge implications not only for flavor and balance but more importantly its microbial stability and impact on sulfite additions. It is probably the single most important number you can obtain while making wine.
In winemaking, SO2 is the first line of defense against oxidation and microbial spoilage and a key contributor to a wines aging potential. As a winemaker, you are intentionally allowing the fruit juice to decompose into wine (thank you yeast!), but stopping it before it continues the decomposition cycle to volatile acids like vinegar and then later into water, as would happen in nature.
Before you add the yeast, you need to test the must to determine if any additions/corrections are needed. Very rarely will you get a grape that naturally has the required balance of acids, sugars, and pH necessary to create a harmonious wine. When one or more of these elements are out of their ideal ranges, the quality of the wine suffers.
