2023 WM APRIL-MAY

EXPERT TIPS FROM MERLOT MASTERS TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR OWN AT HOME GETTING THE MOST FROM RED HYBRIDS FERMENTED FOODS TO PAIR WITH YOUR WINES

Wine analysis products for artisan

SO2 (Free & Total)

26 RED HYBRID GRAPE WINEMAKING

Making red wine from hybrid grapes can sometimes be a challenge, but the rewards are also tremendous. The first steps? Forget what you know about making wine from vinifera grapes and embrace the unique characteristics hybrids often have.

by Zac Brown

32 MERLOT AROUND THE WORLD

Though its reputation may have been tarnished by a certain movie after the turn of the century, Merlot continues to be one of the most popular wine grapes in the world. Winemakers from France, Italy, and the United States share advice on crafting a memorable Merlot at home.

by Danny Wood

40 RICE, RICE, BABY

The ancient Japanese beverage sake has grown in popularity across North America in recent years thanks to craft sake producers. Making this unique beverage from rice is a really fun project for those who would like to expand their home fermentation hobby. Learn more about sake and the basic ingredients and steps to make your own.

by Andrew Centofante

departments

8 MAIL

A reader asks if cold stabilization should be required for beginning winemakers, and another seeks advice after their vodka fermentation stopped prematurely.

10 CELLAR DWELLERS

We saw a lot of cool looking amateur wine labels in our 2023 label contest but nothing quite as unique as these. Check out these labels from Chateau Hetsakais as well as some pointers for making red wines and the latest news, products, and upcoming events.

14

TIPS FROM THE PROS

Wine blends are most often created after fermenting each variety separately. However, that isn’t the only way to do it. Some winemakers choose to co-ferment certain varieties together, believing this approach adds to the complexity of the resulting wine. Get tips on co-fermentation from three pros who endorse the benefits.

16 WINE WIZARD

Winemaking may be more a science, but blending is definitely an art. The Wizard has some tips for a rookie winemaker looking to possibly blend five different wines. Also, make sure you’re up on the latest knowledge and mitigation methods surrounding the phenomenon known as smoke taint.

19 VARIETAL FOCUS

Hailing from the southern regions of Italy, Aglianico is revered as producing big and bold red varietal wines. It is finding its way across the sea and will need some taming in order to make the best from its clusters. Get the scoop.

47 TECHNIQUES

Since the start of COVID-19, the interest in fermented foods seems to have only grown in popularity. Take a walk through some easily fermented foods you can make in your kitchen and what wines may pair nicely with them.

50 ADVANCED WINEMAKING

In contemporary times beer and soft drinks have become the standard beverages to find on draft at bars and restaurants, but that is changing as wine-on-draft is a growing trend. Learn how you too can enjoy having both still and sparkling wines at home served on your own draft system.

56 DRY FINISH

Travel with us to the country of Georgia where winemaking in ancient times started and where many of those early traditions remain. Explore the techniques, equipment, and wine grapes being utilized in wine’s native land.

March

Join

South

next March

-

2024

combine wine with a safari adventure in one epic vacation! We’ll tour the most famous wine regions of South Africa including Stellenbosch, Franschoek, Paarl, and the Cape. We’ll visit both small and large wineries meeting their winemakers and tasting the local Pinotage and many other great wines during the excitement of their Southern Hemisphere grape harvest season. Then we’ll head to Kruger National Park to seek out lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and cheetahs from an open Land Rover with a ranger and spotter on a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime safari.

For more details visit: winemakermag.com/trip

EDITOR

Dawson Raspuzzi

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Dave Green

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Open Look

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Bob Peak

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Dwayne Bershaw, Chik Brenneman, Alison Crowe, Wes Hagen,

Maureen Macdonald, Bob Peak, Phil Plummer, Clark Smith

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Charles A. Parker

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD

Steve Bader Bader Beer and Wine Supply

Chik Brenneman Baker Family Wines

John Buechsenstein Wine Education & Consultation

Mark Chandler Chandler & Company

Wine Consultancy

Kevin Donato Cultured Solutions

Pat Henderson About Wine Consulting

Ed Kraus

EC Kraus

Maureen Macdonald Hawk Ridge Winery

Christina Musto-Quick Musto Wine

Grape Co.

Phil Plummer Montezuma Winery

Gene Spaziani American Wine Society

Jef Stebben Stebben Wine Co.

Gail Tufford Global Vintners Inc.

Anne Whyte Vermont Homebrew Supply

Do you have a favorite variety of red wine grape you like

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Bottling Sparkling Wine From A Keg

There are various carbonation methods for making bubbly at home including the use of a carbonating stone or specialized equipment such as a counter-pressure bottler. Here is a guide to bottling your sparkling wine from a keg. https://winemakermag.com/ technique/306-force-carbonatingwine-to-sparkle-technique

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Cover Photo: Charles A. Parker/Images Plus

My favorite red varietal might sound cliché, but it’s Cabernet Sauvignon. I make three very different style Cabernet wines in my portfolio and I am always impressed with the huge differences in style based on growing region. I love trying various yeast strains and blending them post ferments to coax the most complex array of flavors out of the Cabernet as possible.

I love the way Norton ripens in the warm climate of Clarksburg, California. It comes in with balanced acidity, rich color, complex aromatics, and soft, round texture. It contains 1.5% unfermentable solids, so the alcohol is always below 13%.

In the springtime I love making Malbec. Fermentation smells like cotton candy and usually doesn’t require a lot of adjustments up front. I like that Malbec’s a red wine I can drink young or age, it’s always bright and fruity. In the fall it’s hands down Petite Sirah. Petite Sirah is a gorgeous inky color, can handle fermentation without temperature control really well, and produces a delicious bold wine every time. I can bottle it straight or use it as a blender to perk up any of my red wines that need a little help.

Anita Draper

Meritage Roundtable

Like most things in winemaking, bring four winemakers together and you’ll get four different opinions. Which is exactly what we’ve done here. We asked four commercial winemakers the same series of questions about keys to making a great red meritage blend and got several different thoughts. https://winemakermag. com/technique/meritage-roundtable

Red Hybrid Color Stabilization

All contents of WineMaker are Copyright © 2023 by Battenkill Communications, unless otherwise noted. WineMaker is a registered trademark owned by Battenkill Communications, a Vermont corporation. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned, and no responsibility can be assumed for such material. All “Letters to the Editor” should be sent to the editor at the Vermont office address. All rights in letters sent to WineMaker will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to WineMaker’s unrestricted right to edit. Although all reasonable attempts are made to ensure accuracy, the publisher does not assume any liability for errors or omissions anywhere in the publication. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or in whole without written permission is strictly prohibited. Printed in the United States of America. Volume 26, Number 2: April-May 2023.

Red wines from hybrid grapes can be frustrating — one day you have a deep garnet wine and the next you are wondering where the color went. Color stabilization is the key, and there are techniques to help. https:// winemakermag.com/technique/redhybrid-color-stabilization

MEMBERS ONLY

The Science of Food-Wine Pairings

Approaching foodwine pairings can be complex given the nearly endless options available . . . but there is a science to it. Learn the basics to matching a wine with a food course to impress even the sticklers in the group. https://winemakermag.com/ technique/delicious-endeavors-thescience-of-food-wine-pairings

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* For full access to members’ only content and hundreds of pages of winemaking articles, techniques and troubleshooting, sign up for a 14-day free trial membership at winemakermag.com

FILL YOUR PASSION.

BOTTLE FILLING MADE EASY!

XPRESSFILL BOTTLE AND CAN FILLERS are handcrafted and custommade to order in the USA. We offer five types of fillers: Volumetric Filler, Level Filler, Carbonated Beverage, Counter Pressure Filler, and a Hot Fill Level Filler. With ten models to choose from, there is an XpressFill that will fit your needs. Order yours today!

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THE PINNACLE OF LAFAYETTE

6 Tofflemire Drive, Lafayette CA 5BD | 4BA | 2HfBA | 8,080 sq. ft.

Ascend through a forest and leave behind city hustle and bustle. This magnificent home offers commanding views of Mount Diablo and adjoins the Lafayette Reservoir open space and trails. The lot, with vineyard, is impeccably landscaped throughout.

Three separate buildings complete the grounds: an equipped winery with a tasting area; a building with a full bath that can be used as a gym or guest room; and a greenhouse. This estate is an incomparable idyllic retreat.

Offered for $4,950,000

6TofflemireDrive.com

WHAT ABOUT COLD STABILIZATION?

I really enjoyed Bob Peak’s article “Let’s Start Making Wine” explaining beginning winemaking in the February-March 2023 issue. It was easy to follow and thorough; but he left out an essential step for us users of cold-climate grapes— cold stabilization. Without doing this, the beginner will be spending a lot of time explaining that sludge that showed up in the bottled wine!

Steve Grubba • Corning, Iowa

Thanks for the feedback, Steve! Bob certainly had some tough decisions to make when we assigned him this subject (for which entire books are published) and asked him to keep it below 3,000 words! Cold stabilization (also called bitartrate stabilization) is one of the subjects we decided wasn’t a necessity to cover in this story for a couple of reasons. One, we ran a story on the subject of cold and heat stabilization in the December 2022-January 2023 issue (which we encourage everyone who wants to learn more about this subject to check out!). But a second reason is because cold stabilization is a choice winemakers have and forgoing it will have minimal, if any, impact on the aroma or flavor of the wine. What it may lead to if bottles are chilled is the formation and precipitation of potassium bitartrate crystals in the bottle, often called “wine diamonds” as they look like small diamonds or sea salt.

VODKA FERMENTATION

I have the Alcotec vodka kit, I checked the room temperature before I started and it was 66 °F (19 °C), the fermentation started after about 18 hours, when I checked the liquid was at 75 °F (24 °C) so I tried to lower the room temperature and I got the liquid down to 66 °F (19 °C) but the fermentation has stopped (after 6 days). Will it still be OK or should I add some restart yeast to it?

Tony Kast • via email

Aaron Hyde, our distilled spirits expert, responds: “It sounds like your fermentation was going quite well. Your fermenting liquid heats up due to all the yeast’s biological activity during fermentation. Typically with turbo yeasts, the manufacturer recommends an ambient temperature to ferment at, not a wash or liquid temperature. Cooling the ambient temperature likely slowed or stopped fermentation (which shouldn’t affect quality). I’d bring your room to the recommended ambient (or fermentation) temperature and ferment for at least five more days to make sure fermentation is complete.”

Zac Brown learned winemaking 25 years ago while working with a small family winery and vineyard in Moravia, Czechia. He later honed his skills in Western Australian wineries and then Montreal, Quebec, as an amateur winemaker or “garagiste.” For years, he has studied the science of enology and he has been an active teacher and mentor to other winemakers. In 2017, he and his wife, Julie, purchased Alderlea Vineyards in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Since taking over, Zac has focused on vineyard health and improving Alderlea’s wines, consistently winning national awards.

Zac makes his WineMaker debut on page 26 sharing his experience and advice for making high-quality red wine from hybrid grapes.

Danny Wood is an Australian-based journalist who lived in Kansas City, Missouri, for a decade before moving home with his family. He’s made wine in his basement, worked in wineries, and is a former editor of Midwest Wine Press. He also studied enology while in the United States and judged the occasional wine competition, but was really smitten by vino (and his American wife) while living in Spain, reporting for BBC News. In past issues of WineMaker, Danny has profiled Joel Peterson and Ravenswood Winery, as well as written stories on fermenting with wild yeast, essential winemaking techniques, the varieties of Chardonnay, Malbec, Tempranillo, and many other topics.

Beginning on page 32, Danny travels the world (or speaks with winemakers across the world, at least) to get their advice on making a memorable Merlot.

Andrew Centofante is the Co-Owner and Head Brewer of North American Sake Brewery (NAS) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Andrew first fell in love with sake on a trip to Japan where he was exposed to high-quality sake for the first time. As a homebrewer for many years, he soon began dabbling in making sake at home. This sent Andrew down a rabbit hole of research and experimentation that turned one batch into many as he fell in love with brewing sake. He and business partner Jeremy Goldstein traveled across America and to Japan to learn more about this craft, which would eventually lead them to opening NAS in 2018. Andrew is also the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Sake Brewers Association of North America.

Andrew shares advice on how home winemakers can make their own sake beginning on page 40.

New Irrigation Suggestions For Drought-Prone Regions

Research out of Oregon State University (OSU) has the following advice to offer up to wine grape growers in more drought-prone environments: Irrigate early when water is available, but not too much to promote a giant canopy. Then cut back later in the growing season when water is more scarce. What OSU’s viticulturist Alec Levin found working in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley was that more irrigation early in the season led to higher yield and fruit quality.

This is a balancing act because if grape growers irrigate too much too early, the canopy will be excessive leading to higher water consumption later in the season. But his conclusions were clear that the longer they waited to start irrigation, the lower the yield. The irrigation rate used was 17 gallons (64 L) per week per vine. Fruit quality among the deficit irrigation programs was a little less straightforward as other factors came into play such as viral, fungal, or pest stress. Also, the effects on harvest Brix was a little more variable; a slight delay in starting the irrigation program did increase Brix, but Brix was reduced in the later start vines.

These studies will continue in 2023 with continued work on grapes and how fruit quality from the different irrigation strategies makes its way into the finished wine.

RECENT NEWS

UPCOMING EVENTS

https://www.goodfruit.com/thirst-management-for-wine-grapes/

https://www.goodfruit.com/thirst-management-for-wine-grapes/

New Products: Still Spirits Air Still Pro

A new upgrade is available for the Still Spirits Air Still, an air-cooled countertop home distillation system (this system does not require water to cool the distillate). The new Air Still Pro is an improvement on the design by adding a reflux column so users can more easily produce clean distillates. For users of the Still Spirits Air Still, there is an available upgrade so that they don’t need to purchase an entirely new unit to gain the same benefits of the reflux column. The Air Still Pro allows users to switch between pot-still and reflux mode. Another new feature is a built-in botanicals basket and a foreshots collection vial for automatically collecting the first heads of the distillate.

https://bsghandcraft.com/still-spirits-air-still-pro

JUNE

1 & 4, 2023

Small Class WineMaker Boot Camps — Full-day Boot Camp sessions will run pre-conference and post-conference in Eugene, Oregon. Each Boot Camp runs from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and includes lunch. Attendance is limited to just 35 attendees per session and sessions do sell out. These add-on Boot Camps beyond the conference registration are a great opportunity to get an in-depth learning experience in a small audience setting and learn hands-on from experts. To learn more about what classes are available: winemakerconference.com

JUNE

2–3, 2023

2023 WineMaker Conference — The 14th annual WineMaker Conference will be held in Eugene, Oregon, located in the world-famous Willamette Valley wine region. Join fellow hobby winemakers from across North America for full days packed with dozens of seminars and special events to help you make your own great wine. The event has several optional side events including small-class Boot Camps, winery tours, and the WineMaker International Amateur Competition Awards Dinner. Spots do sell out, so don’t wait to register. winemakerconference.com

AWARD-WINNING KITS

SILVER

RJS Craft Winemaking En Primeur

Winery Series

Malbec

Winexpert Selection Chilean

Carménère

BRONZE

Mosti Mondiale Originale Nero

D’Avola

Winexpert Limited Edition Nerello

Winexpert Limited Edition

Barbaresco Nebbiolo

Winexpert Private Reserve

Piedmont Nebbiolo

Winexpert Reserve Argentina

Malbec

Winexpert Reserve Italian Dolcetto

Winexpert Reserve Montepulciano

Winexpert Vintners Reserve

Bergamais

Red Vinifera Bordeaux Style Blends

BRONZE

Winexpert Private Reserve

Languedoc

Winexpert Reserve Cabernet Merlot

Here is a list of medal-winning kits for the Other Red Vinifera Blends and Red Vinifera Bordeaux Style Blends categories chosen by a blind-tasting judging panel at the 2022 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition in West Dover, Vermont:

Other Red Vinifera Varietals

TILL GULDIMANN • CHATEAU HETSAKAIS — SARATOGA, CALIFORNIA

We decided to design and print our labels in-house and affix them to the bottles ourselves, as with all other steps. This required equipment (label printer, software, and labeler).

Equipment Choices: We purchased a special-purpose label printer in 2012 (Zeo! from QuickLabel Systems, www. quicklabel.com) with an associated spooler, label design and printing software, plus rolls of label stock. But the printer was poorly designed, and the software couldn’t be updated to work on Windows operating systems beyond XP. The company introduced a new printer at twice the price. So we ditched the printer and in recent years have switched to an external label-printing service Epic Labeling Solutions in Mountain View, California (www.fernqvist.com/); the material and printing costs for a simple design are around 50 cents per label.

We bought a basic electric labeler (Bottle-Matic II, from Dispensa-Matic, www.dispensamatic.com/) that works very well, is ideal for our requirements, is reliable, and is easy to operate. With it, we can easily label around 150 bottles per hour.

In 2022 we redesigned the front labels for the vintages of 2013 and beyond. The central idea was to add more information about the weather patterns influencing the grapes we grow and wine we produce. We boiled the weather data down to three critical parameters:

• Relative Rainfall: How much rain fell during the vintage year (for the 2015 vintage, this would be from November 2014 through October 2015) and relative to the average for all years on record (2013 through 2021). This measure summarizes the availability of water.

• Relative Sunshine/Temperature: This relays what’s known as the Cumulative Growing Degree Days (CGDD) for the vintage year and how it compared to the average for all the years on

record. This measure summarizes the presence of sunshine.

• Distribution of Heatspikes: When the average hourly maximum temperature during the day exceeded 95 ºF (35 ºC). Heat spikes show when excessive temperatures force the vines to shut down.

Note that what matters most for characterizing how the weather influenced each vintage is the deviation from the average weather. The absolute weather is a characteristic of the location and part of the terroir. The deviation from average is a characteristic of the vintage

in that time and place. All the data was collected from Davis weather stations located in the vineyard.

With the help of Gregory Niemeyer, Professor of Media Innovation at UC-Berkeley (https://www.gregniemeyer. com ), we developed a circular graphic to represent a visual thumbprint of the relative weather conditions for each vintage. To learn more about it or about our labels, weather data, weather monitoring systems, or the rest of our vineyard and winemaking endeavors, check out our website at:

http://chateauhetsakais.com

BY DAVE GREEN

BEGINNER’S BLOCK KEYS TO MAKING RED WINE W

hen it comes down to it, crafting red wine is basically a class in itself. Making whites, rosés, and most sparkling wines can all be clumped together to one set of rules, but making a good red wine from grapes is a different beast. Yeast selection, handling of grapes and must, fermentation protocols, and oaking are just a few ways that red wines go their own way. Let’s take a brief dive into some ways that a winemaker can assure that they are making the best with what they are provided when it comes to red wine production.

HAPPY YEAST

Great wine starts with happy and healthy yeast. There are several keys to coaxing the most out of your yeast for red wines: Nutrient levels, oxygen in early punchdown cycles, proper yeast selection, and using an appropriate amount of yeast. If you are making wine from a kit most of these have already been done for you. We recommend the use of a commercially produced yeast strain for beginners. Natural fermentations can be finicky.

If you are using juice or fresh grapes, sending a sample of juice away for testing its YAN (yeast assimilable nitrogen) is a great way to assess your starting parameters. If you don’t have a pH meter or a way to measure TA (titratable acidity), there is even more reason to get the sample tested professionally at a lab.

GRAPE SKINS

We can’t talk about red wine production without a discussion on grape skins and all that they provide. This is going to be the source material for color (anthocyanins) and structure (tannins) in red wines. These are gained during fermentation for reds, when the heat of fermentation allows these compounds found in the skins (tannins are also found in stems and seeds)

to transfer into the wine and alcohol helps facilitate this assimilation.

Why is this important? If you are starting with red juice or concentrates, you may want to look to add grape skin packs to the fermentation to help boost these characteristics in the wine, especially if you’re going for a bigger style of red wine. Grape skin packs are available for purchase if additional palate weight is desired.

Also if you are dealing with thinnerskin grapes like Grenache, Gamay, or Pinot Noir, or looking for a big wine, there are tricks more advanced winemakers can utilize to coax a more concentrated level of these compounds from grapes such as an extended maceration or the saignée method. Saignée will produce a small batch of rosé wine and a more concentrated red wine.

On the other side of the coin, fresh grape winemakers may want to shorten the time spent on the grape skins when working with grapes that have excessive levels of these compounds — grapes like Tannat or Nebbiolo. But if it is noticed too late and the finished wine is excessively tannic then winemakers have several fining choices to help strip some from solution. Or, as many Nebbiolo producers in the Old World know, time will also tame tannins as they will slowly polymerize (link together) and fall out of solution.

ACIDITY

The acidity of red wines can act as a counterbalance to residual sweetness or general jamminess that can come from some fruit, especially overly ripe clusters. For beginner winemakers, having the equipment to test for acidity parameters such as pH and TA may be out of reach. But you can still use taste as your guide to determine when a little acid addition may be needed or deacidification in other cases.

It is important to note that wine kits have been carefully tested to

produce a balanced wine. That doesn’t mean that as you progress in the hobby you cannot make these adjustments. But I find it’s just like with a new cooking recipe, it’s best to stick to the supplied ingredients and instructions the first time, then you can possibly adjust for future creations if you feel compelled.

You need to be keenly aware that acidity will change over time with the wine. Alcoholic fermentation, malolactic fermentation, and cold stabilization are potential causes for shifts in TA and pH. Backsweetening the wine is another way to balance the wine when acidity levels are too high.

Bench trials can be utilized for those with the patience. If you do decide to make an acid adjustment, work slowly towards the goal with small incremental additions, tasting as you go to make sure you don’t overshoot it. Tartaric acid is the best choice for acid additions and potassium bicarbonate will often be used to deacidify.

THE GRAPE DILEMMA

In the first section we talked about ways to boost the body of a red wine made from juice or kits with the aid of skins. If you are using fresh grapes, finding good quality grapes is paramount. Try your best to exclude grapes and clusters that you wouldn’t want to eat because of damage or rot. The cleaner your fruit that goes into the wine, the better your chances that a clean wine will be the result.

THE OTHER FACTORS

There are a lot more decisions you will need to make as a winemaker to guide a red wine towards your goal. What kind and how much oak to add (if at all), malolactic decisions, aging considerations, sulfite levels, fining and/ or filtering . . . the list goes on. The best advice is to take it one step at a time and just enjoy the ride.

BY RYLEY HOUGLAND

CO-FERMENTATION

Fermenting different grape varieties together

Winemakers most often ferment each grape variety separately and then create blends after conducting precise blending trials. However, some winemakers believe fermenting varieties together results in more complex wines.

We co-ferment

Zinfandel along with Petite Sirah and Carignane. The Petite Sirah lends some weight, tannin, color, and dark fruit character, while the Carignane contributes bright red fruit character and vibrant acidity. We also do a small amount of Syrah that we co-ferment with Viognier, which is a common practice in France’s northern Rhône region.

We farm a number of estate vineyards that were planted well over a century ago. It was common practice back then for California grape growers to deliberately plant various varieties intermixed in the vineyard. For instance, our Lytton Estate – East vineyard is broken into 18 blocks, and years ago we went through and identified every single vine in the field and were able to assign a percentage of each variety to each block. For example, a block we’ve designated North Flat 1 is planted to 85% Zinfandel, 5% Carignane, 5% Petite Sirah, 3% Mourvèdre, and 2% Alicante Bouschet. Another block designated Hill 3 is 75% Zinfandel, 25% Petite Sirah.

As part of our commitment to traditional, or “pre-industrial” winemaking, we honor the practice of planting a mixed bag of grape varieties by picking whatever is planted out in the vineyard all together. This is known as a “field blend.” When we decide to harvest we’ll pick all the different varieties within the block together and co-ferment them.

There is some kind of alchemy that happens when you co-ferment. A number of years back we harvested one of our vineyard blocks in two ways. We first went through a portion and picked the Zinfandel, Carignane, and Petite Sirah separately. We then went through the rest of the block and picked

everything together like we normally do. We then fermented the three varieties separately and blended them after the fact and compared the results of that wine against the co-fermented wine in a blind tasting. Literally everyone participating in the tasting preferred the co-fermented wine. The most common reason given for the preference was “greater complexity.”

At our Montebello location where we produce our Bordeaux blends we ferment varietals separately. The main reason Bordeaux varietals are better suited to blending post-fermentation is that, particularly in cool-climate regions like the Santa Cruz Mountains, the grapes ripen at different times. Here at Lytton Springs things tend to ripen all at once. There may be an argument that the small amount of Mourvèdre in a block is going to be well behind the Carignane, but their ripening times are not so disparate to have a negative impact on the resulting wine. In fact, a little variation in ripeness within a block may even be part of the alchemy that makes co-fermented wines special.

Just because you’re co-fermenting doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pick all at once; there’s nothing in the rulebook that says you can’t add new grapes to already fermenting grapes. If, for example, you’re making a Zinfandel at home and it’s halfway through fermentation but you’re not getting the color you want, go find some Petite Sirah and toss it in the mix.

I think anyone making red should consider co-fermenting with a little white thrown in the mix. It really works wonders when it comes to aromatics and acidity. And if you’re looking for a bit more structure and color in a home wine, a little Alicante Bouschet goes a long way.

I think anyone making red should consider co-fermenting with a little white thrown in the mix. It really works wonders when it comes to aromatics and acidity.

Michael Bairdsmith found his love for winemaking after working in the restaurant industry of California’s Sonoma County after college. He took a cellar intern position at a small Dry Creek Valley winery in 2003 and has since worked his way up, serving as Assistant Winemaker at Ridge Vineyards’ Lytton Springs, California, location since 2014.

R W

ecently we have cofermented Syrah with Mourvèdre, as well as a fruit wine of Sauvignon Blanc with pears. Previously we’ve done Pinot Noir with Chardonnay, Carignane with apple, and Carignane with pear.

The only combination we’ve repeated so far has been 50/50 pear-Sauvignon Blanc. It hits a nice balance of ABV, acidity, and residual sugar, so we’ve decided to stick with it. Whether or not we co-ferment often depends on the vintage and if both varieties are ready to be picked at the same time.

The benefit of co-fermentation is that there’s likely to be greater complexity and a more seamless integration to the finished wines. We’ve never

e typically co-ferment Syrah and Viognier. This is an Old World style of winemaking that we implement at Paraduxx for our Winemaker Series Co-Ferment Napa Valley Red Wine.

Co-fermentation is not usually a standard practice for us other than with this Syrah/Viognier blend, but this past year we co-fermented some Petite Sirah and Zinfandel and had great success. Petite Sirah is a very tannic grape, and Zinfandel can be very juicy and fruit-forward. We were pleasantly surprised how the Zinfandel tamed the big, bold tannins of the Petite Sirah and made the post-fermentation wine smoother and more complex. We enjoyed the result with these grapes so much it may become a standard practice for us going forward.

The determining factor of how much Viognier we used in these co-ferments for many years was our supply of Viognier. We only had a limited supply from our estate ranch, with the majority used for our Proprietary White Wine. Recently, we acquired another vineyard with a small block of Viognier on it, which has allowed us to increase the amount of Viognier we can co-ferment with. The 2019 vintage of the Paraduxx Co-Ferment Red Wine had 7% Viognier,

done an experiment where we do the same grapes co-fermented and blended, it’s just a feeling from experience tasting co-ferments versus blends.

If the harvest dates line up, we’ll always be interested in trying co-fermentation. We have to choose a harvest date that works for both varieties. So, often you have to split the difference and one variety might be slightly over or under your ideal ripeness. Sometimes this gap is too big and the logistics just don’t work out to do a co-fermentation. Don’t force it. If the grapes aren’t ready to be picked at the same time then it’s not likely to work out well.

I’d consider co-fermenting anything that you plan on blending. You have to give up a little control, but the results can be interesting.

with 84% Syrah, and 9% Grenache. When co-fermenting Viognier with Syrah, the Viognier will naturally stabilize the Syrah’s dark purple red color and make it appear almost glossy and bright while softening the larger tannins Syrah can contain. Additionally, it will add aromatic complexity to the wine. Putting a glass of dark red wine to your nose and getting white flower aromas can be perplexing yet alluring at the same time.

We use specific yeasts and fermentation tanks for certain wines. Since our typical co-fermentation is with Syrah and Viognier, we tend to ferment this in an open top, which allows more oxygen into the fermentation. We are using a pneumatic punch-down device that is very gentle in terms of extraction and a yeast strain that accentuates floral notes to increase the aromatics.

All of our other wines are fermented and aged as separate varietal lots and then blended pre-bottling. This allows far more control over the flavors we strive to highlight in the final product. We can always do blend trials and see if we want more Cabernet Sauvignon in our Zinfandel.

Winemaking is exploration. You don’t really know if it is worth it unless you try. Start small. Be curious and adventurous. That is what makes winemaking fun!

Cardiff Scott-Robinson earned his degree in wine-focused business marketing and strategy, working primarily in the business and hospitality side of the industry to start his career. After joining Napa, California’s Paraduxx’s winemaking team in 2009, he has worked his way from cellar worker to Winemaker, where he specializes in making Napa Valley blends.

Jason Phillips has worked in the wine industry since 2008, spending time at premium wineries in Napa, Sonoma, and the Santa Cruz Mountains of California before joining Jumbo Time Wines in Los Angeles in 2022.

BY ALISON CROWE

WINE WIZARD BLENDING GUIDANCE

Smoke taint mitigation

QI’VE HAD THE GREAT LUCK TO BELONG TO A HOME WINEMAKING GROUP IN WASHINGTON STATE WHERE A LOT OF MY FELLOW MEMBERS MAKE MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF WINE ( I’M JUST STARTING OUT ). WE’VE GOT ACCESS TO VARIETIES LIKE CABERNET SAUVIGNON, CABERNET FRANC, MERLOT, SYRAH, AND EVEN PETITE SIRAH, WHICH ALL GROW PRETTY WELL HERE. IN ORDER TO USE UP SOME OF OUR SMALL LOTS, AND TO MAKE A CREATIVE CHALLENGE FOR OURSELVES, WE’VE DECIDED TO POOL OUR ODD - DUCK KEGS AND CARBOYS TOGETHER AND HAVE A “MAKE THE BEST BLEND” CONTEST. THE WINNING BLEND WILL BE DISTRIBUTED AMONGST THE PARTICIPANTS WITH THE WINNER GETTING BRAGGING RIGHTS AND A SLIGHTLY LARGER NUMBER OF BOTTLES.

WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE GIVEN ABOUT 375 m L s OF EACH POSSIBLE COMPONENT, A 10-m L PIPETTE, AND A 100-m L BLENDING CYLINDER. OUR COMPONENTS ARE ALL OF THE VARIETIES I LIST ABOVE AND THEY’RE DIFFERENT AGES TOO ( LIKE I SAID, IT’S KIND OF THE SCRAPS ) SOME OF THEM HAVE SOME AGED CHARACTER BUT MOST ARE PRETTY FRESH. WE’RE NOT FORCED TO USE ALL OF THEM, BUT I NEED TO CREATE THE BEST BLEND I CAN USING WHAT I’VE GOT. HELP ME, WINE WIZARD, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!

DENISE PACKARD PROSSER, WASHINGTON

AI think that’s a pretty cool idea! How many of us are lucky enough to hang out with such an obviously collaboratively minded group of folks? And, though it may seem daunting, there’s nothing like jumping in and getting started. At the very least you’ll learn something going through the process yourself and I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from your fellow winemaking club team members! Here are some of my top pieces of blending advice:

• Work Small: My first piece of advice is definitely not to do your trial blends in quantities more than 50 mLs! You’ve only got a small amount of wine to work with so you need to keep your samples very small. This means that you’ll have to be working in really tiny volumes. Can you get a 5-mL pipette (or even a 1-mL?), which would mean you can work in smaller quantities and save wine as you

go along? For just one person, for beginning tastes, you really only need 25 mLs.

• Make a spreadsheet: Don’t just randomly toss bits of wine here and there. You’ve only got a little bit of wine so you don’t want to waste it. What I like to do is make a spreadsheet where I list all of the components down the left-hand side and then next to them list the # of mLs/25 mLs (if you can go that small) and then next to that calculate the percentage that each component is in the total blend. Cut and paste that mini-calculator for every iteration of the blend you do and label each one A, B, C and so on. That way you’ll have a track record of what works and what doesn’t.

• Be aware of what every wine brings to the party: Taste and evaluate a small amount of each of your blending components on their own and assess what their strengths and weaknesses are. Are there any holes/are they missing something?

Taste and evaluate a small amount of each of your blending components on their own and assess what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Photo by Alison Crowe

Blending wines is a skill set that winemakers should learn and the more wines to potentially blend in, the more challenging it can be.

Does the Petite Sirah bring the fruit whereas the Cabernet is the structure hero? What about the Merlot? Don’t be afraid to not use a component if it doesn’t bring anything to the party.

• Think about filling the holes: Start mixing and matching to make a “complete” wine without any holes, i.e., pair that fruit-bomb Petite Sirah with some Cab for structure, then some Merlot for body . . . and a little something else if it’s really oaky . . . you get the idea. See if you can line up the positive attributes to make a satisfying whole wine without letting anyone’s possible negative sides stick out. Work iteratively — that is, add a little bit of something to see if it makes your blend better. If it doesn’t, use less, or don’t use any at all.

• Think about finishing tannins and other products: Most of the big commercial wine-supply companies are selling these new and innovative liquid and powdered finishing tannin products. They can be used in the last month or two before bottling and can really improve a wine’s oakiness, finish, or mouthfeel. I think every home winemaker should have a small

selection of these dropper bottles and powders to trial — they can make all the difference in filling in holes if you happen to find one in a blend.

• Never blend a loser: My long-term readers know that this is one of my mantras. Never force that square peg into a round hole or give that high-VA (volatile acidity) Zinfandel a home in a final blend just because you feel bad for it. Since this is a contest, if there’s something you don’t like, don’t feel like you have to use it. Do be aware, however, that in blends sometimes tiny amounts of “flaws” really do help an overall blend. VA is one of these things; sometimes a small amount of a high-VA lot can really elevate the fruit. Just be sure to filter the final blend in the cellar because you don’t want to spread around that bacteria that’s causing the high-VA issues.

I hope this helps and I hope you have enough wine to play around with! Also, I hope you have fun experimenting; learning is what blending is all about and once you start doing it I’m sure your confidence will improve for each subsequent blend.

QI LIVE IN SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, AND WE’VE HAD SOME PRETTY BIG WILDFIRES DURING A FEW OF THE LAST HARVEST SEASONS. WHAT’S THE CURRENT THINKING ON HOW WE MAKE WINE IF THERE’S A POSSIBILITY THE VINEYARDS WHERE WE’RE GETTING OUR GRAPES ARE AFFECTED BY SMOKE? I’VE HEARD PLENTY OF MENTIONS OF SMOKE TAINT BUT STILL DON’T KNOW THE DETAILS. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR OVERVIEW.

AIndeed, the last few years (2017 and 2020 especially) grape growing areas in Northern California and other parts of the state including the Central Coast have experienced historically large wildfires. If grapes are exposed to smoke, winemakers should be alert to the possibility of smoke taint damage to grapes and to finished wines during and after these events. You’re right — it’s an important topic for almost all of us, most particularly winemakers in Mediterranean climates where falls are warm and dry, to have a handle on the current information.

Volatile phenols (which I’ll abbreviate as VPs) are released when wood burns during wildfires. VPs exist in both free and bound forms in grapes, juice, and wine and can cause a smoke taint defect in the aroma and taste of finished wines. These sensory defects have been described as “campfire,” “medicinal,” “earthy,” or “smoky,” among other terms. While some of these descriptors are common in red wines, especially those aged with toasted oak, smoke taint is especially characterized by an ash tray sensation at the back of the throat, on the finish of the wine, and is observed retro-nasally. Please note: Smoke taint in wine is not a danger to human health and many “smoke taint markers” that can be measured are naturally-present in wines aged with toasted oak.

There is no cure for smoke taint, in the vineyard or cellar. Growers and winemakers can do their best to use the limited means of mitigation available (see more in the following paragraphs) . . . and it’s still a very evolving topic! If your vineyard is in a fire zone and/or exposed to smoke, you should assume you

are at risk for smoke taint, so harvest and make wine accordingly. At the same time, there are anecdotal tales of vineyards being very close to fire zones yet still yielding perfectly normal and acceptable wines. It is extremely difficult to predict a finished wine’s final sensory and chemical analysis.

Some wine labs have “smoke taint panels” where they measure VPs like guaiacol and 4-methyl guaiacol. That’s all well and good but in my personal experience, and in the anecdotal experience of many of my winemaking friends, the numbers are truly meaningless as predictors of final wine quality and intensity of possible smoke taint.

Smoke Taint in Processing and Winemaking —

Some Basic Information:

• Skin contact time: Free and bound VPs are hydrophilic and extract very quickly into musts — within a day, estimated 30%, within 5 days, over 80%. Current guidance for red winemaking is not to press off early, and shorten skin contact time, etc. Unless you can make rosé (which is not always economically possible), try to make the best red wine you can. Optimizing positive traits in a wine can help cover up volatile phenols. Whites and rosés benefit from being separated from the skins as soon as possible.

• Picking early/unripe fruit: Picking early (especially if pyrazines are present — Cab, Merlot, etc.) doesn’t help as studies are showing that pyrazines (present in unripe grapes) actually make it worse and pyrazines (bell pepper aromas) are equally a red wine defect that people are sensitive to. Pyrazines are difficult to remove as well. Now you have two wine defects,

FRANCISCO GUERRA ROHNERT PARK, CALIFORNIA

WINE WIZARD

not just one.

• Aging: Studies are ongoing but some scholars believe that at one year of age the vast majority of VPs in wine will be stable, i.e., the problem will not get worse at this time.

Mitigation in the Vineyard — Can anything help?

• Minimize MOG (material other than grapes): Do everything possible to exclude MOG (leaves, stems, etc.) as smoke taint compounds are also metabolized into leaves, petioles, and stems.

• Avoid picking avenue rows and row-end fruit: In 2017, side-by-side experiments I did in one of my vineyards in Sonoma showed that not picking avenue rows (exterior facing rows) or row-end fruit helped reduce the amount of smoke taint in the final wine by a significant amount. It did not 100% prevent it of course but reduced it by about 20%. This is possibly because the avenues and row-ends carried higher levels of vineyard dust and ash kicked up by passing vehicles. This happened in the 2017 event, on the Napa Valley floor, when fire was quite close to the vineyards and it’s possible this ash was quite fresh, which is why there was a significant difference.

• Minimize time between field and press: For whites and rosés especially, VPs increase with skin contact.

Mitigation in the Cellar — Reducing perception

• Press more gently: It is clear that the maximum VPs are released into the juice (whites/rosés) and musts (reds) at greater pressure. Try to press more gently, separating out free run from press fractions, keeping pressing to a minimum. For reds, separate everything over 0.8 bar and treat press fractions separately. For whites, maximize free run and minimize rotations and length of press cycle. Wineries will have to balance acceptance of lower yields vs. higher smoke taint risk. However, don’t be afraid of maceration in reds — you’re still going to have more success by getting full extraction and “masking” by having lots of good stuff in your wine as well as potentially a little bit of bad stuff.

• 100% de-stem all reds: Destemming all red fermentations is recommended. No studies have been done regarding VPs in grape stems, but if they can be present in leaves and petioles it seems likely that VPs will be present in stems. Green stem character (pyrazines) can make smoke taint appear worse, so it seems helpful to exclude them.

• Blending: Blending smoke-tainted wine with non-tainted wine can work to reduce smoke taint character, but only if you have enough non-tainted wine to blend levels down. But be cautious — why ruin 100 gallons of smoke taint-free wine with 10 gallons of tainted wine? Do bench trials and test for free and bound VPs. Do short-term aging in bottles or bench scale if possible.

• Masking — maximize fruitiness: Using residual sugar (RS) in final blends can help. Anything that points up fruitiness, like blending with fruity wines like Zinfandel and Petite Sirah for reds or Riesling and Gewürztraminer for whites, can help lessen the sensation of smoke/ash characters. This will only work in wines with a low level of smoke taint.

• Masking — oak and tannin products: Sometimes fruity oak or tannins can mask low levels of smoke taint. Do bench

trials — Oak products will never contribute to bound VPs, only free. The only time a VP can become “bound” is during the berry ripening process.

• Partial removal — activated charcoal: Activated charcoal products (available from industry-supplying companies like AEB, Laffort, and Scott Labs) can help remove lower levels of smoke taint aromas. But be aware, additions larger than 1 g/L really start to strip good things from the juice/wine as well. Again, you need to do bench trials.

Does it work? Maybe . . .

• Washing grapes: Unless there is visible ash under 24 hours old (which can release volatile phenols), washing grapes will likely not help, as most of the VPs will already have been absorbed into the grapes.

• Washing grapes with ozonated water: There are ongoing studies being done, but the anecdotal evidence so far points to it not helping. It’s also very expensive and might impact the fruit in negative manners.

What has been shown not to work?:

-Adding bentonite

-Settling out white wines to low % solids

-Adjusting fermentation temperature

-Brix/potential alcohol differences

-Enzyme treatments on juice

-Picking green/early (then you have bad/green wine on top of possible smoke taint!)

-Pressing off early for reds (in other words, make the best wine you can)

-Treating heavily smoke-damaged wine. Carbon treatments, blending, masking, etc. are all worthless against heavily smoke-damaged lots, i.e., lots that are already exhibiting bad and off aromas early.

Bottom line: If a vineyard is exposed to smoke, it is possible there will be some smoke taint risk in the finished wines made from those grapes. On the other hand, just because a vineyard experiences a smoke event, it does not mean the wines made from those grapes will all exhibit detectable or even objectionable levels of smoke taint. Decisions must be made in real time as much as possible and on a case-by-case basis. I’ve largely found that taking berry and cluster samples to a wine lab for volatile phenol analysis to be largely futile. The “numbers” didn’t seem to correlate between guaiacol levels and the final amount of olfactory smoke taint in the final wine.

As there is no cure for smoke taint, vineyard and winemaking teams alike must assess the situation as best they can and then work together on strategy and mitigation to produce the best wines possible.

I’ve been pretty lucky. In 2017 and 2020 both, I picked some Cabernet that were under very smoky conditions and, by following the advice I’ve provided, made some really great wines. The deodorizing carbon treatments, in particular, seemed to work well. It’s very important, as always, to do bench trials so you’re not adding too much and stripping the wine. I’m glad I picked those grapes as opposed to leaving them on the vine. There were a lot of winemakers in Napa and Sonoma that should’ve picked grapes in those years but didn’t.

VARIETAL FOCUS

BY CHIK BRENNEMAN

AGLIANICO A tannic and rich Italian variety

As I ponder the variety for this issue, I reflect back on over 20 years of winemaking experience and how my mentors Ben Zeitman and Katie Quinn of Amador Foothill Winery in the Shenandoah Valley of California influenced me. Ben and Katie always told me that, “If we were not going to make good wine, then why bother?”

They were also aficionados of Italian wines and always strived to do justice to their varieties grown here in California. They brought in some of the best consultants from Italy to look at their site and advise on what varieties would do well. Sangiovese was a no-brainer; easily recognized in the marketplace, but challenging to grow in California without overcropping. The consulting group helped a lot with that.

But there was another variety they recommended as we contemplated pulling out an older portion of the Sauvignon Blanc vineyard. Ben and Katie were just coming off a trip to Italy and reflecting on their notes and some bottles of wines they brought back. During their reflection, they decided they were going to plant Aglianico. My response was, “What’s that?”

It was early in my career; I did not have a lot of “varietal knowledge” and in their explanation of its characteristics, I was grasping for a comparison that I could relate to. Ben, of course, started extolling on the wonderful qualities of Aglianico —where it was from, its firm and balanced wines, and its general richness.

But something I couldn’t grasp was what do we make that I can relate to? Ben’s response was, “think Syrah, but only a Syrah that the Italians can make.” As bizarre a response as that

was I got my moment of comparison, and now all the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together . . . without a single plant in the ground. And typical of my curiosity curve, I started to seek out Aglianico wines in local bottle shops.

BACKGROUND

Aglianico thrives in southern Italy, where it is described as the most widespread black variety in the provinces of Avellino and Benevento in the Campania. It also grows very well in the cool but dry sunny mountain conditions of Potenza and Matera in Basilicata. These areas have soils of volcanic origins that result in dark and concentrated wines that are quite age-worthy.

It was once thought that Aglianico was introduced to Italy from Greece, but the DNA folks have shown it is not related to any modern Greek variety. It is closely related to many varieties cultivated in Campania and Basilicata, in particular to Aglianicone. Scientific evidence suggests it could be one of its parents, although nicknamed Aglianico Bastardo as it is known to be inferior to its parent in wine production. Given the current level of information, Aglianico is likely one of the most ancient varieties of grapes grown in Italy.

So what to do with a grape with such a storied past? The real challenge, at least in my winemaking experience with this particular variety, is that you really need to focus on tannin management. Some varieties are just plain loaded with tannins and others are not. As a winemaker, you are tasked with trying to find the right balance. Those with lower tannin levels, you seek to express them, and others, like Aglianico, and for the pur-

Given the current level of information, Aglianico is likely one of the most ancient varieties of grapes grown in Italy.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

AGLIANICO Yield 5 gallons (19 L)

INGREDIENTS

125 lbs. (57 kg) fresh Aglianico fruit

Distilled water

10% potassium metabisulfite (KMBS) solution (Weigh 10 grams of KMBS, dissolve into about 50 mL of distilled water. When completely dissolved, make up to 100 mL total with distilled water.)

5 g Lallemand Syrah yeast

5 g Diammonium phosphate (DAP)

5 g Go-Ferm

5 g Fermaid K (or equivalent yeast nutrient)

Malolactic fermentation starter culture (CHR Hansen or Equivalent)

EQUIPMENT

15-gallon (57-L) food-grade plastic bucket for fermentation

5-gallon (19-L) carboy

(1–2) one-gallon (3.8-L) jugs

Racking hoses

Destemmer/crusher

Wine press

Inert gas (nitrogen, argon, or carbon dioxide)

Ability to maintain a fermentation temperature of 81–86 °F (27–30 °C)

Thermometer capable of measuring between 40–110 °F (4–43 °C) in one degree increments

Pipettes with the ability to add in increments of 1 mL

Tartaric acid – addition rate is based on acid testing results

STEP BY STEP

1. Clean and sanitize all your winemaking tools, supplies, and equipment.

2. Crush and de-stem the grapes. Transfer the must to your fermenter. During the transfer, add 15 mL of 10% KMBS solution (This addition is the equivalent of 50 ppm SO2). Mix well.

3. Take a sample to test for Brix, acidity, and pH. Keep the results handy.

4. Layer the headspace with inert gas and keep covered. Keep in a cool place overnight.

5. The next day sprinkle the Fermaid K directly to the must and mix well.

6. Go back to those lab results you took yesterday. Typical Brix for this style is 24–25 °Brix. Typical pre-fermentation acid levels will be 5–7 g/L. Adjust as necessary using tartaric acid to pre-fermentation level of 7.5–8.0

g/L. Don’t worry here; the malolactic conversion will drop the acid levels.

7. Prepare yeast: Heat about 50 mL distilled water to 108 °F (42 °C). Mix the Go-Ferm into the water to make a suspension. Take the temperature. Pitch the yeast when the suspension is 104 °F (40 °C). Sprinkle the yeast on the surface and gently mix so that no clumps exist. Let sit for 15 minutes undisturbed. Measure the temperature of the yeast suspension. Measure the temperature of the must. You do not want to add the yeast to your cool juice if the temperature of the yeast and the must temperature difference exceeds 15 °F (8 °C). To avoid temperature shock, you should acclimate your yeast by taking about 10 mL of the must juice and adding it to the yeast suspension. Wait 15 minutes and measure the temperature again. Do this until you are within the specified temperature range. Do not let the yeast sit in the original water suspension for longer than 20 minutes. When the yeast is ready, add it to the fermenter and mix.

8. You should see signs of fermentation within about one to two days. This will appear as some foaming on the must surface and it will appear that the berries are rising out of the medium. This is referred to as the “cap rise.” You need have on hand the ability to push the grapes back into the juice to promote color, and tannin extraction. This is called “punching down” and this should be done three times per day. Use a clean and sanitized utensil or your hand to mix.

9. Monitor Brix and temperature twice daily during peak fermentation (10–21 °Brix). Morning and evening is best and fermentation temperature maintained between 81–86 °F (27–30 °C).

10. At about 19 °Brix, sprinkle in the DAP and punchdown.

11. When the Brix reaches 0 (about 5–7 days), transfer the must to your press and press the cake dry. Keep the free run wine separate from the press portion for now.

12. Transfer the wine to your carboys or one-gallon (4-L) jugs. Your press fraction may only be a gallon or two (4–8 L). Make sure you do not have

any headspace. Place an airlock on the vessel(s).

13. Inoculate with your malolactic (ML) bacteria. Check the manufacturer’s instruction on how to prepare and inoculate.

14. Monitor the ML fermentation using a paper chromatography assay available from most home winemaking supply stores. Follow the instructions included in the kit.

15. When the ML is complete, measure the residual sugar through tasting or by sending a sample to the lab.

16. Add 2 mL of fresh KMBS (10%) solution per gallon (3.8 L) of wine. This is the equivalent to ~40 ppm addition.

17. Measure the pH and titratable acidity. Most importantly you want a finished TA of about 6.5 g/L. The pH is secondary but should be around 3.7. Consider adding acid to adjust the TA prior to settling, but taste the wine first to make sure it is not too tart. Do not add any more acid if the wine is too tart. Place the wine in a cool place to settle.

18. After two weeks, test for SO2, adjust the SO2 as necessary to attain 0.5 ppm molecular SO2. (There is a simple SO2 calculator at winemakermag.com/ sulfitecalculator). Check the SO2 in another two weeks and adjust. Once the free SO2 is adjusted, maintain at this level. You’ll just need to check every two months or so and before racking.

19. Rack the wine clean twice over 6-8 months to clarify. Consider using some oak chips to add some oak flavors, but don’t expose the wine too long to the oak. 1–2 weeks is sufficient for this volume. Fining and/ or filtration are generally not needed if SO2 is maintained and there are no surface films or indications of subsequent fermentations.

20. Once the wine is cleared, it is time to move it to the bottle, roughly eight months after fermentation completion.

21. Make the project fun by having a blending party to integrate the press fraction back into the free run. You may not need it all, use your judgment.

22. Maintain sanitary conditions while bottling. Once bottled, you’ll need to periodically check your work by opening a bottle to enjoy with friends. Have fun!

pose of comparison Syrah, are higher and your job is that of the tannin tamer.

VITICULTURAL TIPS

As mentioned, Aglianico is a historically Italian red grape variety. You can find plantings in several warmer, sunnier microclimates in California. As a varietal, it can be described as a high-quality, age-worthy wine that can be tannic. In the vineyard, it is early budding and very late ripening, sometimes as late as November.

Yields need to be controlled to prevent overcropping. It has good resistance to powdery mildew but given its long growing season, is quite susceptible to Botrytis bunch rot. But the reality of it is, the long growing seasons are necessary to adequately ripen the rich tannins.

In the vineyard is the first time a winemaker can help tame the excessive tannin load that can come with these grapes. Tannins take time to mature. Indirect exposure to sunlight and adequate time spent on the vine through the growing season can go a long way. But sometimes nature plays with the winemaker and taming these grapes can’t all happen in the vineyard.

AGLIANICO IN THE WINERY

As the fruit comes into the cellar, your next opportunity as tannin tamer is at the destemmer/crusher. As a home winemaker, sometimes you do not have good options here, but in general, physical removal of the berries from the stems is recommended to not damage the stems and possibly extract green tannins.

Crushers without destemmers are generally the more affordable versions of this piece of equipment, but spending a little more for one that will destem and have the ability to adjust the crushing rollers will pay off in the long run. I like to set my rollers as wide as possible. That setting allows the crusher to damage the bigger berries somewhat while the small berries drop right through. When pressed, these smaller berries express themselves as “alcoholic fruit-bombs” that add a different dimension to the wine (think carbonic maceration). I like to pick through the pomace when pressing and find these. I affectionately call these berries “adult candy.”

The maceration process is another approach to tannin

management with Aglianico. If a little is good, then a lot is better some folks would say. Not the case here. A standard practice I like to use with all of my red wine fermentations is once I get the color I want, I move the wine to press. Very rarely do I take a wine past seven days on the skins. I move the wine to the press, collect the free run juice and then press the remainder, keeping that separate, at least for now. My philosophy is to keep the free run and press fraction separate. You can always add them back together, but I do not want to be tasked with removing tannin through fining if I do not need to.

The other option available to the home winemaker is barrel aging, which promotes micro-oxygenation, or MOX as it is collectively known in the winemaking world. Regular topping of the barrels to replace the evaporative losses introduce small amounts of oxygen into the wine that aid in polymerizing the shorter tannins, thus softening the wine.

This is hard to do, especially with small-batch winemaking, so if you are working with a quantity less than a barrel focusing on a kinder, gentler fruit processing and limited maceration time goes a long way to keeping your tannins tamed. If you do have the ability to barrel age your Aglianico wines, taste them over time and be patient. They will come around. Small-batch winemaking could also benefit from some limited racking from carboy to carboy and the use of oak chips that impart a bit of sweetness.

Circling back to my days with Ben and Katie . . . after I moved on to another job, Ben called me one day and asked if I would come up and oversee the planting of the new vineyard. It was a wonderful experience that I thought helped me bring to full circle those early discussions and steep learning curve. In the end, I never had the opportunity to make the Aglianico that Ben and Katie planted.

As I moved on to the university, we had some test blocks where it was grown and we brought the fruit in to see how it would do in the UC-Davis climate. I think our biggest challenge was the tannins. The advice I give here is based on experience. In the end, I never made the perfect batch, but that is what I love about winemaking. There is always next time, as long as in the meantime you have something to ponder and enjoy in your glass. Life, like wine, generally gets better with age.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Mount Vesuvius provides a dramatic backdrop to the vineyards found among the ancient ruins of Pompeii in the region of Campania in Italy.

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• Willamette Valley Pinot Panel

• Post-Modern Tools to Build Wine Structure

• Crafting Age-Worthy Wines

• Making Brandy

GRAPE GROWING

• Canopy Management

• 5 Biggest Grape Growing Mistakes

• Backyard Grape Growing Q & A

HIGHLIGHTS

• Willamette Valley Winery Tours

• WineMaker Competition Awards Dinner

• Sponsor Exhibits

GENERAL WINEMAKING

KIT WINEMAKING

• Keys to Wine Clarity

• Troubleshooting Q & A

• Award-Winning Country Fruit Winemaker Panel

• Crafting Italian Reds

• Calibrating Wine Equipment

• Basics of Wine Analysis & Testing

• Making Limoncello & Other Citrus Liqueur

GROUP INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS

• Advanced Kit Techniques

• Award-Winning Kit Winemaking Roundtable

WINEMAKER BOOT CAMPS

• Side-by-Side Oak Trials

• Winemaking Table Topics

• Winemaking Hot Subjects

• Willamette Valley Winemaking

MEET WITH WINEMAKING SUPPLIERS

• Advanced Winemaking from Grapes

• 2-Day Fundamentals of Modern Wine Chemistry

• Winemaking from Grapes

• Distilling

• Small Winery Start-Up

• Home Wine Lab Tests

• Backyard Grape Growing

• Judging & Scoring Wines

• Willamette Valley Winery Tours

As an attendee, you’ll have the opportunity to check out the latest equipment, products & supplies from many of these leading winemaking vendors Friday & Saturday.

TITLE SPONSORS

SUPPORTING SPONSORS

RJS Craft Winemaking Winexpert

And more sponsors to come!

SMALL-CLASS WINEMAKER BOOT CAMPS

2 BIG DAYS & NEW CAMPS!

THURSDAY, JUNE 1 • 10 AM – 4:30 PM

Maximize your learning by taking two different Boot Camps. Full-day, small-class Boot Camps will run pre-conference on Thursday and post-conference on Sunday from 10 AM to 4:30 PM and include lunch. Attendance is limited to just 35 people per session and do sell out. This add-on Boot Camp beyond the conference registration is a great opportunity to get an in-depth learning experience in a small-class setting and learn hands-on from experts.

ADVANCED WINEMAKING FROM GRAPES

Go beyond the basics and understand complex techniques to get the most from your winemaking using fresh grapes. This workshop intended for intermediate and expert home winemakers will tackle a range of tips: From dialing in extraction levels on the front end all the way to protecting your wine with advanced tips through bottling.

DISTILLING

Walk through the small-scale distilling process. You’ll leave understanding the various types of small still equipment, as well as the small-scale distillation process for brandy, whiskey, rum, and gin. Get your questions answered throughout the full day as you learn the art of distillation using a small still.

WINEMAKING FROM GRAPES

Learn all the steps of making wines from grapes including crushing and fermenting all the way to bottling. You’ll work with fresh grapes and operate the different pieces of equipment and the tests you’ll have to run on your wine.

BACKYARD GRAPE GROWING

You’ll learn site selection, vine choice, planting, trellising, pruning, watering, pest control, harvest decisions plus more strategies to successfully grow your own great wine grapes.

HOME WINE LAB TESTS

Step-by-step teaching on how to properly test your wine for sulfites, malolactic, acidity, and pH. You’ll have the chance to run these different tests yourself to give you a valuable hands-on learning experience so you can accurately run these tests on your own wine at home.

WILLAMETTE VALLEY WINERIES INSIDER TOUR

Tour several wineries as you explore the world-famous Willamette Valley and have plenty of opportunities to ask their professional winemakers your winemaking and grape growing questions. You’ll be served lunch along the way and have tastings of award-winning wines.

2-DAY FUNDAMENTALS OF MODERN WINE CHEMISTRY

Learn on Thursday and Sunday from wine expert Clark Smith how to use wine chemistry as a practical tool to improve your winemaking. You’ll cover wine chemistry from crush to bottling and how it can inform better decisions resulting in better wine. *This 2-day boot camp includes a 550-page manual that will be a valuable wine reference for this 2-day workshop and for years to come.

JUDGING & SCORING WINES

Learn how to evaluate your own and other wines in the same way as a trained wine judge so you can use these skills to help your own winemaking. Gain a sensory appreciation for various common faults and how to properly use the 20-point UC-Davis judging sheet as a foundation for evaluating wines.

SMALL WINERY START-UP

Walk through the steps, planning decisions, and key financial numbers you need to know if you want to open a smaller-scale commercial winery. Learn how to better achieve your dream of running your own small winery.

WILLAMETTE VALLEY WINERIES INSIDER TOUR

Tour several wineries as you explore the world-famous Willamette Valley and have plenty of opportunities to ask their professional winemakers your winemaking and grape growing questions. You’ll be served lunch along the way and have tastings of award-winning wines.

SCHEDULE AT-A-GLANCE

Pre-Conference WineMaker Boot Camps & Winery Tours • Thursday, June 1, 2023

Fundamentals of Modern Wine Chemistry – Day 1 of 2

10 AM – 4:30 PM

Winemaking from Grapes

Day #1 Friday • June 2, 2023

8 – 9 AM

9 – 9:15 AM

9:30 – 10:45 AM

10:45 – 11:15 AM

11:15 AM – 12: 30 PM

12:30 – 1:45 PM

–

PM

Calibrating Wine Equipment

Advanced Winemaking from Grapes

Backyard Grape Growing

Distilling

Home Wine Lab Tests

Willamette Valley Wineries Tour

Breakfast & Registration

Welcome & Introduction

Canopy Management Keys to Wine Clarity

WineMaker Exhibits

Making Brandy

Advanced MLF Techniques

Award-Winning Kit Winemaker Panel

Lunch & Keynote: Southern Willamette Valley Winemaking with King Estate

WineMaker Exhibits

–

Basics of Wine Analysis & Tests

Willamette Valley Pinot Panel

WineMaker Exhibits

WineMaker Workshop: Side-By-Side Oak Trials

WineMaker Tasting & Wine Sharing Party

DAY #2 Saturday • June 3, 2023

8:30 – 9:30 AM

9:30 – 10:45 AM

10:45 – 11:15 AM

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM

12:15 – 1:45

WineMaker Exhibits

5 Biggest Grape Growing Mistakes

WineMaker Exhibits

WineMaker Exhibits

WineMaker Workshop: Winemaking Table Topic Talks

International Amateur Wine Competition Awards Dinner

RED HYBRID GRAPE WINEMAKING

Delicious wines from non-vinifera vines

by Zac Brown

he first rule of working with red hybrids is to forget everything you do for vinifera.”

I admit to using that line as an attention getter, but in no way does that imply that hybrid wines are inherently inferior to vinifera. Modern winemaking hybrids have come a long way in the last two decades and are capable of making some first-rate wines.

For the purposes of this article, hybrid wine grape species are defined as the vines resulting from the cross-pollination of European Vitis vinifera with one or more North American indigenous grape vine species. I have had the opportunity to make wines from cold region red hybrids grown in the Ontario and Quebec Canadian provinces such as Frontenac Noir, Baco Noir, Marquette, and from fungal-resistant British Columbia-grown Marechal Foch, Cabernet Libre, Regent, and Cabernet Foch. I have also had the opportunity to speak with many other winemakers working with a wide variety of hybrids. While there is no “one size fits all” winemaking tip for all varieties, making hybrids alongside vinifera highlights some general differences . . . and challenges.

The first thing I would say to any winemaker new to hybrid winemaking is that it can be extremely liberating from a creative expression point of view. There are no “Old World” or “Napa-inspired” models to limit your creativity, and the differences in working with them can really make your skills shine as a winemaker. This is something that should be embraced and celebrated as you will never be accused of trying to make an ersatz Bordeaux, pale imitation of Tuscany, or faux Mosel. Making the best wine you can from these grapes is your only goal.

Photos courtesy of Zac Brown

HYBRID

WHY HYBRIDS?

Hybrid wine grapes have been bred over the years to grow in climates where vinifera wine grapes struggle. These may include locations where mean winter temperatures hit below -4 °F (-20 °C) or are too hot and humid, for traditional vinifera, or where resistance to local plant diseases such as Pierce’s disease are needed. These hybrids are bred to have the quality winemaking potential of their vinifera parents AND the adaptations to local conditions of their indigenous parents.

Beyond breeding wine grapes to survive the elements, an increasing desire to grow grapes in a more environmentally sustainable manner than traditional viticulture sees varieties being developed with innate resistance to powdery mildew and Botrytis. As an example, in France viticulture occupies 3% of France’s total agricultural area but uses 20% of the country’s pesticides (Rupert Joy, Decanter 17/03/2019).

The German-based group PIWI (www.piwi-international.de) is dedicated to developing low-spray or no-spray hybrid varieties that can be planted in traditional vinifera growing appellations to reduce the require-

ments to use synthetic fungicides and other agrochemicals. I grow two Swiss-developed PIWI varieties, Cabernet Foch and Cabernet Libre, on Canada’s Vancouver Island (planted in 2002). Most years we spray them just once before flowering to keep them honest, and I am able to use a plant extract-based product (Fracture) or a bacterial-based one (Serenade) instead of a synthetic one.

HYBRID RED WINEMAKING

Early on, I watched multiple winemakers transition to hybrid winemaking using their traditional Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir tool kits with less than stellar results. Again, with the caveat that there is no “one size fits all” approach, this article includes the techniques that have worked for me for a range of red hybrids.

HARVEST

I find that red hybrid wines are less forgiving of compromised fruit, so extra care should be used to eliminate mildew- or Botrytis-impacted fruit, bunches damaged by birds, hard green berries, and MOG (matter other than grapes). Stem inclusion is not recommended, and leaves and other

plant matter should be eliminated, as they will increase undesirable vegetal flavors in the finished wine.

Picking dates and hang time will vary by variety, and you will need to adapt. For example, one of the hybrids we grow, Cabernet Libre, only gets to 20 °Brix no matter how long you allow it to hang in the vineyard or how hot the growing season was. It is physiologically incapable of getting higher sugar levels. It tends to hit 20 °Brix about 10 days to two weeks prior to our next earliest red variety, Pinot Noir. However, we do not pick it until we pick the Pinot Noir. By letting it hang, we see acid levels drop, reduced pyrazine character, improved fruit flavors, and tannin development. What we don’t see in that 10 day-to-two week period is increased sugar levels, so some chaptalization is required. In contrast, our Marechal Foch is ready to pick as soon as it hits 23–24 °Brix — the phenolic and sugar ripeness coincide, and the acid levels are in the desired zone simultaneously. Like all grapes, hybrid varieties have their quirks. The more harvests you work with them the better, and you understand what works and what doesn’t for the style of wine you are trying to make.

Like other PIWI varieties, Cabernet Libre has a high resistance to fungal disease and, therefore, thrives with a significant reduction in the use of pesticides.

MACERATION

Two common traits across many red hybrids are a high anthocyanin color compound content and a lower tannin level in the finished wine compared to vinifera grapes. In some of the literature, it appears that red hybrids have comparable tannin levels in the grape skins to vinifera, however it seems that these either aren’t released into the wine during fermentation, bind with high protein levels in some hybrids, or are unstable and “fall out.”

The traditional approach to vinifera red winemaking would be to either use more extractive enzymes or to use extended maceration techniques (either pre- or post-fermentation). In my experience, when applying these techniques to hybrids, they exacerbate undesirable flavor notes due to increased seed extraction.

My maceration recommendation for red hybrids is to crush into insulated bins, inoculate with yeast

right away, and quickly get the must up to a fermentation temperature of 85–95 °F (30–35 °C). Because red hybrids tend to have high levels of color compounds, long skin contact times are not needed to get deep, rich color. With varieties such as Frontenac, Marechal Foch, and Cabernet Libre, I press with 5–8 °Brix of sugar remaining and finish fermentation to dryness in the tank. The rationale behind this is to press the wine away from the skins before the solvent effect of increasing alcohol levels extracts undesirable flavor compounds from the seeds. This technique is also helpful when working with “foxy” native varieties or underripe red grapes in general. This process could be characterized as “ferment hot and fast, then press early.” The focus is to reduce vegetal notes and hybrid seed flavors as hybrid seeds often carry undesirable flavor compounds due to their indigenous parents, and to

produce wines that will appeal to a broad audience.

I have tried the delestage, or “rack and return,” method to get the seeds out of the fermenting must, but have found better results with this short maceration approach as it arrests extraction of both the seed and skin compounds in the wine.

I have also found that products designed for underripe fruit work well with this hot and short maceration approach. Lallemand’s Red Style, which is a combined enzyme and inactivated yeast, is a product I have used with this short maceration technique with great results. It releases desirable fruit character, helps stabilize the tannins, and doesn’t extract undesirable seed compounds.

TANNINS

As noted earlier, most red hybrid wines have lower tannin levels than red vinifera wines. Depending on your preference, this may or may not be desirable. On some varieties, such as Marechal Foch, this can be a positive. In our winery, Marechal Foch sells very well to people looking for something more quaffable and easy drinking. For those looking for something with a more traditional tannin profile and increased aging ability, supplemental tannins are an effective tool.

One option is the use of untoasted oak chips or powder during primary fermentation, which has the benefit of promoting fruit flavors and suppressing vegetal or “foxy” character. Untoasted oak chips, especially American, are helpful in this regard. I have used 1–4 g/L successfully; the higher end of the range being applied if green seeds or less ripeness are present and for varieties known to be quite low in tannin.

There is also a range of fermentation-stage tannin products that can be used that may be extracted from grape skins, oak, or exotic woods. I’ve found that adding these products at the highest end of the manufacturer’s recommended range early in primary fermentation can assist with color stability and tannic mouthfeel of the resulting wines.

With my hybrid reds, after many

High anthocyanin color is common for red hybrids, shown here as Marechal Foch is punched down.

trials, I use both untoasted oak powder and fermentation-stage tannins during primary fermentation, both added at crush. These early additions promote later tannin retention because they mitigate the impact of proteins in the must (so called sacrificial tannins) and bind with natural tannins in the must to form stable tannin structures that will be retained in the finished wine as it ages.

If you find as the wine ages there is still a need for more “tannic grip,” cellaring-stage tannins are available. I recommend conducting bench trials and then adding half of what you think you need to start with. Wait a month and then reassess any additional cellaring tannin additions. It is easier to make a second addition than to come back from an over-addition.

CO-FERMENTATION

I have found good results when co-fermenting red hybrids with other varieties in the same vessel. When working with Frontenac, I found that

co-fermenting 5% Petite Sirah or Cabernet Sauvignon “filled the hole” in the wine’s tannic profile and contributed to enhanced mouthfeel.

I have fermented Cabernet Foch with the skins of Viognier at about 3% of the volume to boost fruit notes and improve color stability. I have also had success fermenting 5% Blattner White (an unnamed hybrid) in our Cabernet Libre. The technique and results are similar to co-fermentations of Syrah and Viognier that are popular in the Rhône region of France and Australia.

I believe this remains an area worth further exploration.

YEAST SELECTION

With hundreds of yeast strains available, winemakers can select yeasts to suit the challenges of the particular variety they are working with. Here are some of my favorites and their application in a hybrid context:

Maurivin B: This is a malic acid-consuming yeast,

which is handy if working with higher acid musts. It is the most aggressive malic metabolizer commonly available and can reduce malic acid by up to 55% during primary fermentation.

Renaissance Andante: Also a malic-consuming yeast for red wines, Andante can reduce malic by 25–30%. This strain is also a “noH2S” producing yeast, so it’s helpful if working with grapes with low natural nitrogen levels or a tendency to produce reductive notes. Some hybrids have an increased risk of developing reductive notes and this yeast has proven to be a good tool to reduce this risk.

Lalvin ICV GRE:

This yeast is good for promoting fruit character and reducing vegetal notes. I’ve had good results when fermenting half the batch with one of the previously mentioned yeasts and the other half with GRE and blending the two as they are put into barrel.

These three yeasts also all do well at the elevated fermentation temperatures and short maceration times I recommend for red hybrids.

MALOLACTIC FERMENTATION

When selecting a malolactic (ML) bacteria to use with hybrid grapes, you may want to use one that is effective at low pH levels and produces little or no diacetyl. My go-to ML bacteria for hybrids is Lalvin MBR 31. With elevated malic acid levels commonly present in hybrids, you do not want the high butter flavors an ML bacteria suitable for Chardonnay, like Enoferm BetaTM, can produce.

BLENDING

On the flavor arc, many red hybrids have a beautiful bold attack and a nice long finish, however, the middle of the wine can be a bit lost and soupy. I put this down to the lower tannin levels. Blending in 5–20% of a red vinifera can give increased mouthfeel and mid-palate.

CONCENTRATES

As a home winemaker, I made many successful batches using red grape concentrate (1–4% of total must) sourced from wine kits, added to the must before fermentation. This enhanced tannin profile masked “green” notes and enhanced color stability. This may be used in conjunction with or instead of fermentation stage tannin additions discussed earlier. Concentrate will increase the sugar level just slightly at this small addition rate so sugar must still be added if you need to chaptalize more than about 1 °Brix.

BARREL AGING

As with vinifera, hybrid reds greatly benefit from a barrel-aging program of at least 12 months. While preferences vary, American oak’s vanilla-forward character is a good match for many red hybrids. I like to use around 20% new oak for fruit-driven varieties like Marechal Foch and up to 100% new American oak on varieties like Frontenac Noir. Some experimentation is needed — I make a blend that’s 70% Cabernet Foch, 15% Merlot, and

15% Cabernet Libre that really shines with 50% new French oak.

In a home winemaking context, oak adjuncts such as cubes, staves, and chips work well to achieve the desired oak profile.

CONCLUSION

Making wine from red hybrid grapes is a relatively new area in the field of winemaking. This article is not in-

tended to be a definitive text on the subject, but it does include the techniques I have found to work best in both my own home winemaking and current commercial winemaking since making my first hybrid red wines in a Montreal garage in 2003. It is my hope that you will continue to experiment and refine your own winemaking techniques working with these wonderful modern grape varieties.

Tips from the Masters of Merlot

by Danny Wood

erlot is an underestimated hero of the winemaking world. The varietal character of this French grape includes classic red wine flavors like plum, black cherry, and raspberry. Experts would probably agree that its standout characteristics are body and mouthfeel — rich, plush, and almost velvety in the best versions — a quality that is arguably unmatched by other varieties.

According to Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties (2012, Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, José Vouillamoz) the grape is a cross between Cabernet Franc and Magdeleine Noire. However, its parentage wasn’t uncovered until the 1990s and its connection to Magdeleine Noir wasn’t actually confirmed until the late 2000s.

Merlot usually ripens about two weeks earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon, suits cooler conditions, and is higher in sugar and lower in malic acid than its more celebrated rival. On the vine, the bunches are looser and the berries are larger and more thin-skinned than Cab.

The grape also has relatively low tannin so it’s a useful blending partner for more edgy, structured grapes like Cab. However, it is also made into fabulous varietal wines everywhere it is grown.

Photo by Charles A. Parker/Images Plus

A GRAPE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO ENJOY

Merlot is grown and turned into varietal wine all over the world, from cooler climate regions in France, Italy, and Chile, to warmer climes in California and Australia.

There’s a lot of it around. In 2021, according to the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), Merlot was the second most planted grape in the world with 657,300 acres. Cabernet came in at number one.

There are two main Merlot styles. An international style, made by many New World wineries, is made from grapes harvested later for riper, deeply colored, full-bodied wines. These have darker fruit aromas like plum and blackberry and can be high in alcohol —around 14.5% and beyond. A Bordeaux-style, often practiced across France but also in other cooler regions, favors earlier harvesting to maintain acidity and tends to produce a more medium-bodied wine expressing red fruit flavors like raspberry and strawberry.

However, there’s a lot of crossover between those styles. One of the most famed Merlots is Château Pétrus in Bordeaux. This wine has legendary fruit power; and is famously expensive. “Unbelievably decadent” and “other worldly” are some of the accolades used to describe this Merlot by wine critics.

We hope our three masters of Merlot, located in France, California, and Italy, respectively, can show you, too, how to scale those heights.

First up though, we should deal with some unfair anti-Merlot bias that could be influencing your appreciation of this grape.

“If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am not drinking any (expletive) Merlot,” said a character named Miles Raymond, played by Paul Giamatti.

The 2004 movie Sideways dealt a serious blow to Merlot, especially in the United States. Raymond preferred Pinot Noir. Amazingly, the result, according to some industry reports, was a 30% drop in Merlot wine sales and a strong increase in Pinot consumption.

Our Italian Merlot expert says the Sideways movie presented an unfair

Merlot stereotype. “It’s an international grape variety grown in so many places with distinctive versions,” says winemaker Elisa Dilavanzo.

Our United States-based expert, Nick Goldschmidt, says the movie may have actually done Merlot a favor by weeding out some of the lower quality examples.

“It helped, actually, as a lot of the poor Central Valley vineyards I think were pulled as a result,” he says.

However, there are still plenty of generic Merlots out there and, likely as a result, across the U.S. and Europe the wine still seems to suffer from an image problem. Our Merlot expert from France, Simon Blanchard, has a theory as to why.

“I think the production of Merlot has become standardized because many winemakers have used the same clones (which are good, by the way!), but we have forgotten the importance of the genetic diversity of old plots and Merlots over 60–80 years old,” he says.

Among today’s wine drinkers, says Blanchard, Merlot just isn’t trendy. “I think it’s more a question of fashion and that people currently prefer fresher fruit notes, more typical of Pinot Noir,” he says.

However, Blanchard suggests this could make the variety an exciting choice for home winemakers. After all, it’s pretty clear Merlot is an underdog that, more often than many other varieties, fails to live up to its potential. This is your chance to blaze a new Merlot trail and surprise your wine-loving friends!

With that, let’s now get some advice from these winemakers who span the globe and learn how they approach making Merlot wines.

DOMAINE SIMON BLANCHARD

We’ll start in France, where Merlot is planted in wine regions all over the country. The world’s most acclaimed Merlot-based wines are from Bordeaux. On the Left Bank, the variety is common in generic bottlings from the Medoc, the area that surrounds the famous and expensive classified chateaux. However, it’s on the Right Bank of Bordeaux’s Garonne River where

Merlot really stars. The grape is the dominant ingredient in red bottlings from the Pomerol and Saint-Émilion appellations, which are usually the world’s most sought after bottlings.

This is where winegrower Simon Blanchard makes his 100% Merlot wine, the “Au champ de la fenêtre.” His very own estate, Domaine Simon Blanchard, is in an appellation called Montagne, in the heart of the wider Saint-Émilion area.

“This plot selection is made from two parcels on a clay-limestone hillside facing west,” he says. “Merlot on this kind of terroir is always exuberant on the nose with notes of crushed strawberries, blackcurrant, raspberry, but also spice and black olives.”

Blanchard says his organic wine is ample and bold on the palate with a dense tannic structure and long, mineral finish. After a few years in the bottle, it develops black truffle notes that he says is common for locally made Merlots.

He says his bottling is similar in some ways to versions all over the world for its powerful fruit but soft mouthfeel due to gentle tannins that allow it to be drunk very young.

“But this kind of (clay-limestone) soil produces more acidic, more dynamic Merlots that age admirably and very slowly in bottle,” he says.

Blanchard’s winemaking approach is very closely tied to respecting the soil and the grapes. To him — and many experts would agree — great wines need great soils. He talks about loose, aerated soils that allow deep rooting vines and help create “wines with identity.”

Blanchard would insist that you, the home winemaker, find fresh grapes and, where possible, closely monitor where and how they are grown. His approach is best suited to the home winemaker growing Merlot vines in their backyard, or able to source fresh grapes they can monitor in the vineyard.

When deciding harvest time, Blanchard regards Brix and pH levels as important guides but not the deciding factor for phenolic ripeness. In fact, Blanchard generally doesn’t use chemistry at all to decide when

to pick.

“I may shock you or sound like a dreamer but I decide on the date of the harvest only by tasting my grapes precisely,” says Blanchard.

Blanchard says he’s tasting the grapes for optimal ripeness of the fresh fruit flavors and phenolic ripeness of the skins. “It is important for me to have soft and extractable tannins without losing the freshness of the fruit,” he says.

The grapes are harvested by hand and arrive at the winery in small crates. If the stems aren’t too green, Blanchard may choose not to destem

some of them.

Everything in the winery is done by gravity without pumping or even crushing the grapes. It’s all about respecting the fruit.

“The extraction (of the juice) is gentle and almost exclusively by punchdowns,” he says.

By conventional, commercial standards, where the crusher can be ubiquitous, using the punchdown method — or pigeage to give it the original French name — to extract the juice, may seem unusual.

At many wineries, punchdowns are usually only thought of as a way

of breaking up the cap, circulating the grape skins to oxygenate the must and extract color and phenolics. In recent years across the wine industry, however, it’s become common to destem and not crush the grapes, even red ones, especially if you are after fresher fruit flavors. The destemming process does knock the grapes around anyway, helping to free up juice.

Before fermenting, the Frenchman allows his punched down must to macerate for up to a few days. “Fermentations are carried out by indigenous yeasts and I let the temperature rise naturally throughout the fermentation to 86 °F (30 °C),” he says.

Interestingly, all three of our Merlot masters use indigenous yeasts rather than inoculated, freeze dried, commercial yeasts.

However, most professional winemakers, especially in the United States, still use inoculated yeasts. Natural fermentations can be a risky business. According to wine teachers worldwide they can fail to finish, or even begin. Also, home winemakers may not have the best environment for a natural fermentation — the dominant natural yeasts in a winery are likely better suited to fermenting grapes than the ones in your home.

But if you’re feeling it, why not include a natural ferment in your Merlot journey? (Although, having a commercial strain on hand in case a natural fermentation does not take off is still recommended.) Our winemakers share some good advice that will help give your natural fermentation the best chance.

You could also opt for a cultured yeast. In a previous WineMaker article, “Mastering Merlot,” winemaker John Rauner, who makes Merlot at his Yakima Valley winery, recommends either Pasteur Red for a more complex Merlot or EC1118 for a cleaner, fresher finish. Yeast manufacturers have numerous other strains they recommend for Merlot available on their websites, depending on the character you’re looking to accentuate.

Blanchard says his natural fermentation usually lasts 15–18 days. “I then carry out a hot maceration for about ten days,” he says. “Malolac-

Photo courtesy of Simon Blanchard

Simon Blanchard makes Merlot on the Right Bank of Bordeaux’s Garonne River in the Montagne appellation, a region where Merlot is still heralded as king.

tic fermentation takes place after the run-off in 400-L (106-gallon) barrels. I don’t add bacteria either, it happens naturally,” he says.

The must is tasted on a daily basis and Blanchard presses when he achieves “a good compromise” between the wine’s power, tannin, and redox potential.

Redox potential is complicated but concerns a wine’s ability to both oxidize (absorb oxygen) and also undergo reduction (lose oxygen), without negative impacts to its flavor.

Blanchard separates juice that has already run off and uses a vertical press with plastic cages to perform a gentle press with gradual increases in pressure, separating the press runs according to taste. All of his Merlots age in French or Austrian oak barrels.

“For me, oak aging helps bring a softness to the tannic structure and opens the wine,” he says. “I don’t want oaky flavors so that’s why I use French or Austrian oak barrels with light toasts and fine grain.”

When it’s time to bottle, Blanchard uses a “soft porosity system” to filter at between 2–3 microns. He says this porosity helps create wines with an elegant finish.

“I use sulfite in vatting, after malolactic fermentation, during aging if necessary, and just before bottling,” he says. Blanchard aims for a final, total SO2 level of about 60 to 70 mg/L.

He thinks both heat and cold stabilizations impact the taste. Rather than do them, he says he explains the decision and potential impact on appearance to customers.

For the home winemaker about to tackle Merlot, Blanchard says respecting this grape’s balance will help make “everything” possible. He warns against the temptation to press the grapes too hard and add lots of oak.

“This kind of Merlot is boring and nobody drinks these now,” he says with direct French charm.

CALIFORNIAN MERLOT

Winemaker Nick Goldschmidt is originally from New Zealand and makes wine all over the world. His lively YouTube videos show a passion for Merlot. Apart from producing three

versions under his own Goldschmidt Vineyards label in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, he also makes a Merlot in Canada and consults at 15 wineries in Chile that also bottle it.

Two of the Goldschmidt Vineyards bottlings are varietal Merlots made in Sonoma County — one of those is made from grapes in the Alexander Valley, the other from Dry Creek. A third, a Merlot blend, sources fruit from Napa Valley.

These Sonoma Merlot bottlings, he says, show more red fruit flavors, good acidity, and with alcohol levels

usually at 14.5%. The hotter climate in Napa produces a Merlot blend that’s higher in alcohol with more expressive black fruit flavors.

Goldschmidt says Pomerol, the tiny but renowned French region, is his inspiration for making Merlots.

“Always Pomerol!” he says. “Pomerol is fleshy, full and rich but at the same time lighter and appealing. Love them!”

In Napa and Sonoma, he says winemakers like him tend to look for a more Cabernet-style Merlot but without the unpleasant green flavors that

Nick Goldschmidt passionately makes Merlot at his Goldschmidt Vineyards in Healdsburg, California, as well as in Canada, and consults with over a dozen wineries in Chile.

Photo courtesy of Goldschmidt Vineyards

can sometimes impact Cab wines.

Goldschmidt, like Blanchard, is very focused on the viticulture side of his Merlot winegrowing. He says his vineyard management is “very fussy” and in the winery he wants low extraction from the grapes to get the best flavors. He also harvests based on the taste and look of the grapes rather than chemistry. “When I taste the berries, I’m really looking at the color and the tannin,” says Goldschmidt. “I’ve really changed my approach to that in the last, probably 15 years of winemaking.”

He says in his early days he used to regard Merlot like Cabernet. “Now I realize it has a completely different ripening factor and different extraction,” says Goldschmidt.

He destems the grapes straight into a stainless steel tank set to 61 °F (16 °C) where, rather than inoculate with yeast, he also lets the native yeast take over.

Goldschmidt has some very useful advice for the home winemaker interested in trying a natural fermentation: “If you are a home winemaker you need to add 15 ppm SO2 if

you want to go native,” he says. “In a home winemaking situation, you will have a lot of bad yeast around but in a winery we have a ton of yeast and so usually we are OK (not adding the SO2).”

For his Napa Merlot blend, he’s not concerned if the native yeasts are eventually overpowered by the rising alcohol level as he doesn’t mind some residual sugar. “In the Alexander Valley, we typically are a little bit lower in alcohol and so the yeast is still fairly efficient at that level and therefore we can have drier wines, usually two grams or under in terms of sugar,” says Goldschmidt.

Goldschmidt’s fermentation is a wild and exciting ride, which he describes as “aggressive.”

“So, regarding Merlot and fermentation, it’s very complicated,” he explains. “What I’m looking for is color stability.”

Before fermentation, the red juice can have a purple hue. Goldschmidt is very focused on ensuring his fermenting must’s color only moves from purple to red and never gets any brown or orange hues. To do that,

Goldschmidt pushes the fermentation temperature up and down using a mixture of temperature control from his steel tanks and cap management.

“I dial the temperature up and down, raising and lowering the cap, depending on how much extraction I want to get, how full I want the mouth to be,” he says.

This results in maximum temperatures of 86 °F (30 °C) and as low as 72 °F (22 °C).

“The other thing I do, especially in Canada and I have tried it in California and probably will continue to do so, is co-fermenting with Viognier or Sémillon,” he said “Normally it’s about 3% Viognier or Sémillon grapes that goes into the Merlot when we harvest it.” Some winemakers would say that adds freshness and also broadens the palate feel.

Compared to many winemakers, he likes a long period on the skins during and after this fermentation stage. Maceration usually lasts about 30 days but can extend to 50.

“During that time, I will taste three times a week and I always compare a sample against the previous Monday

Merlot is often made into one of two styles: An international style made by many New World wineries from later-picked grapes resulting in deeply colored, full-bodied wines with darker fruit aromas, and a Bordeaux-style preferred in cooler regions from earlier-harvested fruit with greater acidity, which results in medium-bodied wines with expressed red fruit flavors.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

so that I can see how the wine is maturing,” says Goldschmidt.

The result is wine that’s very full, he says, with a Cab-like richness, “but still the same silky tannins and no greenness that you would typically get from Cabernet.”

The wine is racked to tanks three times following malolactic fermentation. “I leave the wine on skins for 30 days so malolactic generally starts by itself anyway and usually finishes soon after we press off,” he says. “I wait for the malolactic to finish before I start doing my tank racks . . . The reason for the tank racks is of course because I want to get very low turbidity so no Brett and no bacteria.”

If the wine is in barrel, they rack three times during the first year. “If we stay in concrete then usually three times there too as the wine can be pretty reductive if not moved,” he says.

Decisions around filtering reveal something of Goldschmidt’s winemaking philosophy: A combination of frenetic action during the early stages of the process, followed by patience based on experience.

“There’s no need to filter as we can rack at under 10 NTU,” he says, referring to nephelometric turbidity units, i.e. the unit used to measure the turbidity of a fluid or the presence of suspended particles. “Everything affects wine initially but after six months it is often hard to tell.”

So Goldschmidt is not concerned by the high levels of solids in the wine in those early months, which some winemakers might reduce with a bentonite addition. Instead, Goldschmidt waits. He also doesn’t do a heat or cold stabilization because, he says, the winter takes care of both.

He adds as little sulfite as deemed necessary. “I want to be stable with a total of 60 ppm rather than most wineries being over 100,” says Goldschmidt. His free SO2 is usually about 22 ppm.

Goldschmidt prefers aging in French oak barrels that are a year or two old, suggesting he’s wary of overpowering his wine with too much oak flavor.

His advice to a winemaker beginning their Merlot journey focuses back on the vineyard.

“It’s all in the vineyard,” he says. “VSP (vertical shoot positioning) is very important. There is a verb in VSP.” VSP is a popular technique where the vines shoots are directed upwards to encourage growth. He says clay soils and water holding capacity are also key.

For home winemakers using fresh grapes and able to monitor their source, he recommends keeping an eye on berry size. He says for Merlot this can have “a far bigger impact” on the resulting wine quality than that for Cabernet.

“Berry size has to be maintained,” he says. “Cab is normally 0.95 g and Merlot can be 1.2 g.”

MERLOT FROM ITALY’S EUGANEAN HILLS

In Italy’s Veneto region, Elisa Dilavanzo makes her Merlot-based wines in the Euganean Hills just south of the town of Padua. Her certified organic winery, called Maeli, is in the small town of Vò. If the town sounds familiar, three years ago Vò made international news as one of the first places in Europe to go into lockdown following a COVID-19 outbreak.

It was a tough time for Dilavanzo’s winery but she says the long pause was used to improve the wines and market them more widely.

Her two Merlot-based bottlings are characterful and powerful with lively acidity she says, but not aggressive. She attributes their persistent and lingering aromas to the volcanic soils of the area.

“Here the particular climate gives maturity to the fruit without exaggerating its concentrations,” she says. “The aromas include herbs and Mediterranean scrub.”

For both wines, Merlot is about 50% of what she describes as a Bordeaux-style blend. “It supports acidity and freshness providing cherry, blackberry, and strawberry flavors,” she says.

The more high end of the two, called Colli Euganei Riserva, is 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon,

and 5% Carménère. Dilavanzo says Carménère completes the blend with spicy aromas and Cabernet contributes herbaceous notes.

The variety of microclimates and vegetation across the Euganean Hills and the proximity of cooling sea breezes from the Adriatic, she says, help give “incredible peculiarities to the wine.” The peculiarities include aromas like blood, animal scents, and a vibrant spiciness that is present even without the use of wood.

While the Merlot-based wines from her region can vary considerably, she says, “what they have in common is often subtle mineral taste.”

“In the Euganean Hills the climate is cooler and the use of wood is often combined with materials such as cement, clay amphora, and steel so the spicy and toasty notes are nuanced and stand out more compared to the opulence of Napa Valley Merlots,” she says.

Dilavanzo practices organic viticulture and closely monitors the chemistry of her grapes. She says she aims for 14% alcohol, 6 g of fixed acidity, Brix of about 24, and pH between 3.4–3.6.

“But it is the tasting of the grape which defines the harvest day: The skin color must paint the fingers and the seeds should be dark brown,” she says.

The grapes are harvested by hand and go straight to a cold soak after what she describes as a gentle destem. A peristaltic pump is used to gently transfer the destemmed grapes to steel tanks.

If the grape quality is very high Dilavanzo often keeps 10–15% of the bunches with stems intact. “The goal is to keep aromas intact to ensure a balanced and fresh wine,” she explains, adding that she believes a cold soak extracts “the noblest aromas of the grapes.”

At this stage Dilavanzo never uses sulfites. “I work the grapes at relatively cool temperatures — between 59–68 °F (15–20 °C) — and use dry ice to safeguard aromatic flavors,” she says.

Like Blanchard and Goldschmidt, the fermentation is a natural one.

She says her natural fermentation is also spontaneous rather than ‘pied de cuve’ (PdC). The French term refers to the preparation of an indigenous winery-made fermentation starter from grapes.

The fermentation temperature of the must is kept cool: Between 59–64 °F (15–18 °C), using a combination of cellar temperature, cooling jackets, and, with smaller volumes, frozen bottles lowered into the tanks.

“We have a long maceration to extract tannins with a carbonic maceration to extract aromas,” she says.

Dilavanzo says the “tumultuous fermentation” lasts 2–3 weeks and the malolactic fermentation takes place without inoculation during that time.

“I usually taste the liquid and decide to press as soon as there are no bitter notes,” she says.

The pneumatic press is a gentle one. “I put the first press up to 0.5 bar in one tank, the second press at between 0.5 and 1.2 bar in another tank, and the liquid pressed over 1.2 bar in a third tank.”

A tasting of the different press juices determines if these tanks are

aged separately or together. Then the different tanks of Merlot and their blending partners are separately vinified in either steel, cement, or two- to three-year-old oak barrels.

“I like Merlot to age in steel and medium-small concrete tanks,” she says. “Here the slow micro-oxygenation — much less than in wood — and the high inertia allows an optimal evolution of the Merlot.”

However, she does also age Merlot in French oak, from either the Sylvain, Boutes, or Quintessence cooperages. She only uses older barrels in order to preserve the natural flavors of the grapes.

Dilavanzo doesn’t filter or clarify her reds. “I’m not a fan of filtering; usually it undresses the wine,” she says, referring to the way some winemakers believe filtering can take out solubles that affect color, aromas, and tannins.

Sulfites are used at low levels. “I usually add sulfites following the harvest at 2 g/hL (20 ppm) to avoid possible spoilage from acetic acid,” says Dilavanzo. A small sulfite addition is also made at bottling. “The finished

wine contains a maximum 60 ppm total SO2,” she says.

A cold stabilization is allowed to happen naturally. “We usually bottle the wines after three winters to increase their complexity so stabilization happens naturally during that period,” she says.

Her advice to the home winemaker is to “indulge” the wine and let the timing of the winemaking be led by the wine itself rather than “one’s own need” or “stylistic choices.”

She also recommends getting out and traveling to the vineyards that grow Merlot and meeting the winemakers. “That will broaden your horizon and give you inspiration.”

NOW IT’S UP TO YOU!

Merlot is widely grown so it shouldn’t be hard to track down some good sources (of both grapes and vines if you are adventurous enough to grow your own). If you’re in the United States, trade associations like the California Wine Grape Growers or the Washington State Wine Grape Growers can help you find leads for locating the best Merlot grapes.

Photo courtesy of Elisa Dilavanzo

Merlot is a dominant component to Elisa Dilavanzo’s Bordeaux-style blends at her Maeli winery in the Euganean Hills of Italy’s Veneto region.

Crafting Japan’s ancient beverage:

by Andrew Centofante

ake! The delicious alcoholic beverage that hails from Japan is one of the most historic, interesting, di cult, nuanced, and beautiful beverages in existence. It is shrouded in mystery and often overlooked as a beverage home winemakers can create using household items found in most kitchens, equipment used in the production of wine, beer, and other fermented beverages, and a couple of other items. As a craft sake producer who started down that path making sake at home for years, I’m here to try to clear up some of that mystery and dive deep into why sake is one of the most exciting and interesting beverages to try to make at home. Beware, this process is not for the faint of heart, may lead to a serious sake brewing habit, and may take some time to wrap your brain around. The best advice I have is to try to be flexible and to keep an open mind. Kanpai!

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

BASICS ON THE BEVERAGE

First things first, sake is made from rice and if you didn’t know, rice is a grain. The term “rice wine” is actually not accurate as sake is a brewed product, more similar to beer than anything else. There are no natural sugars in rice and rice is not a fruit, so wine is not the right word. I can see how people may confuse it as it does have a higher ABV and you do sip it for its complexity and nuance of character, you can also pair it with an assortment of food, just like wine. It is also not distilled, so it is not a liquor. This is an opportunity to let sake be sake, a category unto its own, and when you give it that space to be itself, I think you will find it makes more sense.

Sake is also naturally gluten-free, low in sugars, high in alcohol, easy to drink, and has a wide variety of style, regionality, and variation. It can be served warm or cold. It can be sipped and contemplated, casually drunk at the end of a long day, or used to celebrate with friends. I think many people put sake into too small of a box, confining it to the sushi joint or think it’s just a singular drink that they tried one time, hot as hell, at a hiba-

chi. That’s like only trying a $3 white Zinfandel and thinking that’s what all wine tastes like! Sake is nuanced, can be sweet or dry, rich or light, fruity or earthy, floral, and aromatic, and is the king of umami, that mysterious fifth sense. I recommend drinking more sake to try to understand some of its variation because there is a whole spectrum of sake out there to explore. I also think, if you are gonna try to make it, you might as well know what you are trying to accomplish.

A LITTLE HISTORY

Sake is over 2,000 years old with origins in China at the start of rice cultivation, but really it was perfected by the Japanese. Like most alcohol, it was brewed for religious ceremonies, specifically in Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples pertaining to the seasons. In Japan, sake was historically made in the winter to allow the tanks to become cold enough for proper sake production. As time passed it began to be drunk by the masses and lighter styles, more techniques, and more technology was introduced. During the Meiji period (1850–1912) there was a massive

growth in the popularity of sake and it is said there were over 27,000 sake breweries in Japan. (I like to compare this to our current craft beer scene with a brewery or two popping up in every town). The World Wars greatly affected sake breweries with the country rationing rice, forcing many breweries to blend with cheaply distilled alcohol. The 1970s brought sake back with more advancements of rice polishing and a resurgence of high quality products and techniques. These new styles refined flavor and aroma as well as pushed toward more artisan sake.

Today sake is experiencing an international resurgence with America being the highest importer of sake. New craft sake breweries in the U.S. are popping up around the country while the general population is embracing this ancient drink.

HOW IT’S MADE: THE BROAD STROKES

Sake is a multi-day, multi-step, labor-intensive process that requires some time commitment, so let’s lay out the basics before we dive into the details of each step.

Sake is its own category of beverage and is extremely diverse with a wide variety of style, regionality, and variation. It can be served warm or cold, be sweet or dry, rich or light, fruity or earthy, floral, and aromatic. One needs to try a wide array of sake to truly understand this multifaceted beverage from Japan.

Photo by Robinson Imagery

Four Key Ingredients

Sake is a deceptively simple combination of ingredients. It is made using rice, water, yeast, and koji (more on koji later). That’s it. But there is a lot of nuance to each ingredient and how and why it is used. The art of sake brewing is understanding how these elements work together and how they affect the final product.

Polished Rice

Good sake rice has a core of starch that lives in the center of the grain — this is called shimpaku. Many sakes, especially premium sakes, are made by polishing or milling the rice kernels to start the process. This removes the outer layers of the rice that contain fats and proteins, to then reach a more pure starch content in the center. The more polished or finely milled the rice, the more fruity or aromatic the result. The more of the grain you leave in the brew, the more complex, earthy, and robust a sake may be. This is what some of the style characteristics are based on for terms like Junmai (~70%), Ginjo (~60%), and Daiginjo (~50% or less). Getting your hands on polished rice can be difficult on a home scale (although it is sold by some retailers, including MoreWine!), so we will be using an unpolished rice in the following recipe and we can expect more earthy characteristics vs. delicate and fruity styles.

Steaming Rice

There is no boiling in sake production. Instead, there is a koshiki or rice steamer because we steam a lot of rice, many times throughout the process. The purpose of steaming is to have your rice gelatinized and ready to break down later in the process or to grow koji on. It is essential you steam your rice well so that you are not wasting rice and to make it easier to handle. This is controlled through how much you soak the rice, aiming for 30% water absorption by weight before the steam. You are aiming for a nice al dente rice texture, not mushy, with the grain intact and firm, and gelatinized all the way through. We’ll get into more detail on soaking and

steaming rice in the recipe.

How is rice fermented if it doesn’t have sugar?

Rice has no natural sugars in it, so how does it become alcohol? The answer to that lies in a very special ingredient, a mold called koji. You have all experienced koji before as it is used as the key fermentation ingredient in miso, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and an assortment of other Japanese ferments. Koji (Aspergillus oryzae) is grown specifically on rice for sake. Koji creates enzymes that break rice starch down to create the sugars we need for fermentation. Koji making is an art unto itself and can greatly impact the final flavor and character of a sake.

Multiple Parallel Fermentation

Sake has a fermentation process that is completely unique. Thinking about wine, you crush the fruit and have a must that is full of sugars that are ready to ferment. For sake, we take all the steamed rice, all the koji, and add water and yeast into the tank with it where it ferments in a big mash for about a month before it is pressed and filtered. This is radically different from what home winemakers might be used to, so what is happening?

The rice is slowly being broken down by the enzymes from the koji and converted into sugar, while simultaneously the sugars are being eaten by the yeast and creating alcohol. We have two processes happening in parallel to create an active and vigorous fermentation environment that can reach alcohol content of 15% up to 20% ABV. As an added mind warp, we do not have a starting or final gravity or Brix as our target is constantly moving, with sugars and alcohol being produced throughout the fermentation. There also is not a “finished” mash because it is up to the brewer to determine if and when the sake is done based on what they are intending to create, be that sweet or dry, or the alcohol content, etc.

Temperature Control

Sake is typically fermented in the low- to mid-50s °F (10–13 °C). In Ja-

pan, there is a brewing season that starts on October 1 (mark your calendar to celebrate Sake Day!) and goes through March, when a majority of the sake is brewed for the entire year. This was to coincide with the seasons and rice harvest but also allowed tanks and the brewing environment to be very cold. Temperature helps to control the fermentation by aligning yeast activity with enzymatic breakdown to create a healthy and efficient brew. The cold temperatures can slow yeast down, stressing it and putting off delicious aromas while also giving the koji time to create enough sugars to achieve the flavor and alcohol content desired. This is also a very difficult alignment to master.

Pressing and Filtration

When the mash is determined to be complete, it’s still a big rice porridge with a lot of undigested rice solids. In order to stop the fermentation and remove these solids a number of techniques are used to press out the liquid using gravity, filter cloths, and sometimes pressure. The results are typically a cloudy version of the sake (which is a delicious style in its own right) and can be further cold crashed or clarified depending on your goals.

Storing and Preservation

Many techniques are used to further the shelf life of sake. Nama sake, or raw/unpasteurized sake, is typically big, youthful, and flavorful, but must be kept cold and has a short shelf life. Pasteurization is typically the solution to extend shelf life, and is performed by heating the sake up enough to kill any stray organisms and halt the yeast and koji enzymes. Sulfites and other preservatives are not used. It is best to store your sake cold to maintain that freshness, but if it’s pasteurized you can store in a cool place out of the sun.

A SAKE RECIPE FOR WINEMAKERS

With the very basics behind us, let’s take a closer look at how sake is made. To do that, we’ll go through the production of 3.5 gallons (13 L) of sake step by step, beginning with the equipment that you will need.

1) Rice is steamed before it is used in koji making or to build the mash. At North American Sake Brewery we steam over 1,500 lbs. (680 kg) of rice per batch of sake. 2) Koji spores are gently applied to the rice. These spores are very fine and will float slowly down to the rice, so don’t make any sudden movements. 3) The rice is then thoroughly mixed to ensure an even coating of the koji spores on the rice. Koji will be broken up by hand many times throughout the process to help reduce heat and remove humidity.

Steaming Equipment

• Brew bag(s)

• Bamboo steamer or double pot boiler

• Sheet tray

Koji Equipment

• Koji incubator or cooler with a heating element or an egg incubator, plus a cup of water

• Probe thermometer

• Linen or cotton dishcloth

Fermentation Equipment

• Several 5-gallon (19-L) buckets

• Temperature-controlled chamber (mini fridge or chest freezer with a thermostat)

• Something to stir with

• Brew bag(s)

• Ability to hang a heavy brew bag of rice mash above a bucket

Ingredients

• 17.6 lbs. (8 kg) sushi rice

• 4.4 lbs. (2 kg) koji rice

• 3.4 gallons (13 L) water

• 0.2 mL lactic acid 88%

• Wyeast 4134 (Saké) yeast

STEAMING RICE

We steam rice a few different times during the production of sake, so I will outline this once and you can apply it whenever you steam rice. The purpose is to have gelatinized rice that is considered al dente, firm but pliable, not mushy.

Step 1: Wash the rice (To remove any rice flour and dust)

Place the rice in a brew bag or strainer. Place in a container full of water and work the rice for about two minutes. The water will turn opaque. If possible have water running to help replenish the water.

Step 2: Soak (To absorb water into the core of the rice)

In a container of fresh, room-temperature water, submerge the rice so it is completely covered and allow to soak for about an hour (this is for a standard sushi rice but the time can vary greatly based on polish ratio, typically shooting for ~30% water weight absorption).

Photos by Robinson Imagery

RIGHT WAY TO SAY IT?

The word sake is properly pronounced (Sah Keh) in Japanese with kanji being a little bottle of sake with three strokes next it . Commonly in the U.S. people say (Sa Key). No matter how you say it, it’s delicious.

SAKE VS. NIHONSHU

Nihonshu is the proper Japanese word for what we consider to be sake. It is defined as Japan (Nihon) Alcohol (Shu). Sake is more of a catchall term for any alcohol but has been widely adopted in the U.S. as the fermented rice beverage we are discussing. They can be used interchangeably, but Nihonshu has a Geographical Indicator status, which means anything labeled Nihonshu will have originated in Japan.

COLD VS. WARM

Sake is naturally brewed cold and most of the time it is also served cold. This brings out a variety of nuance and character and is refreshing to drink anytime. That’s not to say warm sake does not have its place. I like to think of it seasonally, and that sometimes on a cold winter’s day, a warmed bottle of sake can bring so much joy. Temperature and sake is such an exciting part of the beverage. I often recommend pulling a bottle out of the fridge and pouring your first glass cold but then set the bottle on the counter and let it come to room temperature while you sip. It’s so much fun to explore these different ranges and how it affects the final product.

BREWED FRESH, STORED COLD

Sake is a freshly brewed product and should be consumed fresh. Aged sake exists but it’s very niche and pretty crazy stuff (definitely not like aging wine). Some breweries will put a date on the bottle so you

know when it was produced. All that being said, sake is a hearty product that, if pasteurized (which most are), can last up to a year or two just fine. I would recommend storing bottles in your refrigerator. Once opened, sake will last up to a month or more as long as it’s kept refrigerated (although it never lasts that long in my house).

WHAT SHOULD I DRINK SAKE FROM?

There is no right or wrong vessel for drinking sake and I love this aspect of sake culture. You can sip from pretty much anything! A few typical vessels are:

• Masu boxes, the square cedar box, is used for a dry rice measurement but is often used with a little shot glass inside, sake overflowing into the box to show generosity (as pictured on page 41). Sake may sometimes even be served directly inside the masu box without a shot glass.

• Carafes are used often to warm the sake in a hot water bath.

• Small cups are often used to give more opportunities to fill your friend’s glass up and to hide how much one is drinking.

• Wine glasses may enhance the aromatics.

• Cups, ceramics, and whatever you might have on hand are also used. Some places will bring you a tray of cups that you can choose to your liking. So pick something that has some meaning to you and enjoy!

KANPAI

This is the Japanese word for “cheers” and means “empty your glass.” Sake is made for sharing and to be celebrated with friends and family. Be sure to say kanpai often as you drink this beautiful beverage. And be sure to keep your friends’ glasses full at all times!

Photo by Robinson Imagery

Step 3: Drain (To remove excess water that can make your rice mushy)

Remove rice from the clean water and allow it to drain by gravity in a brew bag or strainer for at least 45 minutes.

Step 4: Steam (To gelatinize the rice)

In a traditional bamboo steamer or double pot boiler, line with a brew bag or cloth. Bring water to boil, then turn down to maintain a slight bubble. Warning, make sure you have enough water to keep it boiling for at least an hour and a half; you don’t want to evaporate all of the water! Place the rice in the bag or cloth over the boiling water covered with a lid and steam for approximately an hour. The rice will be done when fully cooked and gelatinized all the way through.

Step 5: Cool

Spread the steamed rice out on a sheet tray to allow it to cool. Rice should be cool to the touch before using in other processes. You should not put hot rice into your mash as it could kill the yeast or koji.

KOJI MAKING

Koji making is a complex process that we do not have the space to dive too deeply into here. You can buy premade koji from some Asian markets or online. There are also a lot of resources online for learning how to make koji. The basics are sprinkling the koji spores onto the rice and letting it incubate for a couple days, making sure it doesn’t get too hot and kill itself or go to spore. I recommend buying premade koji the first few times you make sake as this will give you less to worry about and a more consistent result until you are ready to tackle koji making. When you are ready, here is an abbreviated koji process:

Step 1: Steam rice and cool.

Step 2: Spread koji spore onto rice.

Step 3: Place koji in a thin linen cloth and then wrap with a few heavier cotton cloths. Place in your incubation chamber at 82 °F (28 °C) for ~24 hours.

Step 4: Remove heavier cotton cloth and break the rice apart. Wrap in the thinner linen cloth and put back into the chamber and monitor temperature as it rises.

Step 5: Monitor the temperature of the koji for another 24 hours and ensure it stays below 109 °F (43 °C) (as the koji will generate heat). Breaking up the rice, lowering incubator temperature, and removing humidity are ways to reduce the koji temperature.

MASH MAKING

Once you have koji that is ready to use, it’s time to start making the mash. Typically this is done in a multi step addition process to help build a yeast culture. For full-scale sake brewing, you need a very vigorous yeast to protect such a thick mash, but on a small home scale, this is not really necessary because the yeast pitch should be plenty strong enough.

Step 1: Steam rice.

Step 2: While the rice is steaming, add the water, lactic acid, and koji to a sanitized 5-gallon (19-L) bucket and stir. Lactic acid will help to protect the batch from other cultures before the yeast takes a foothold.

Step 3: After the rice is done steaming and cooled, add it to the mash and then pitch your yeast and stir.

Step 4: Cover with a cheesecloth and place in your cold chamber (set to ~54 °F/12 °C if possible).

Step 5: Stir daily, paying attention to fermentation activity. You should be able to see active bubbles and foam, especially in the first few days. If sluggish, warm up the chamber, if extremely vigorous (foaming like crazy and bubbling really hard), cool down. You can also put a probe into the mash and if it’s around 50–57 °F (10–14 °C) that is good. Fermentation could take about 15–20 days.

Step 6: Every few days take a sample (enough for a gravity/Brix reading) by pouring through a coffee filter to achieve clarity (it will take a few hours to drip). Monitor the gravity and map trends over time to try to understand how fast your sake is fermenting. Sake can be complete when gravity reaches ~1.008/2 °Brix or to taste. If the gravity is coming down that is good; but if it’s dropping really fast, try to cool it down.

PRESSING

Once the sake is complete, the easiest

method is to use a hanging brew bag to drain it overnight. If this can be done in a cold place, that is best.

Step 1: Line a sanitized 5-gallon (19-L) bucket with a brew bag.

Step 2: Pour the finished mash into the bag in the bucket.

Step 3: Quickly lift the bag and secure it to hang above the bucket, allowing the liquid to drain.

Step 4: Drain overnight and then get the pressed sake into the refrigerator.

Bonus: Use the leftover rice cake from the bag after it is drained overnight, called kasu, to marinate meat, bake, or pickle with! More information on this process is available online, including at: https://www.master class.com/articles/sake-kasu-guide #what-does-sake-kasu-taste-like

CLARIFICATION & PASTEURIZATION (optional)

If you are looking for crystal clear sake or sake that you want to last a while, you can take these steps.

Clarification: Put into the refrigerator and allow it to cold crash. This may take a while depending on the state of the sake when you decide to drain it. You can try to rack a majority of the sake off the thicker lees on the bottom and then crash again until you reach your desired clarity.

Pasteurization: Bottle your sake in clean, sanitized bottles the same way you would your wine. Place the bottles in a small water bath and bring the water up to about 150 °F (65 °C) for at least one minute. Remove from hot water and shower with cool water until the bottles are cool to the touch. Store in the refrigerator. Beware of shocking bottles — gently bring them up to temperature and gently bring them back down again. Store in the refrigerator or a cool dry place.

DRINK UP!

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the wonderful and beautiful drink that is sake. This is just scratching the surface with a lot of details omitted and some shortcuts taken. There is so much more to learn and I encourage you to dive deeper. In the meantime, enjoy the labors of your hard work. Kanpai!

GETTING CRAFTY

Fermenting foods to pair with your wine

After I started making wine and beer many years ago, I became intrigued with all the other good things that beneficial microorganisms do for us. While I was part owner of a homebrew and home winemaking store, we hired associates who had done some kind of fermentation before they applied with us. As a result, we met highly skilled people who had made not just adult beverages but also sourdough bread, cheese, pickles, sauerkraut, hot sauce, and charcuterie.

By now, I have turned my hand to a number of these as well. I have not found much in the way of pairings with my wine for pickles, sauerkraut, or hot sauce, but some of the other categories have turned out quite well. This column will point you in some directions where you may find new enjoyment putting microbes to work. Three categories that offer almost certain success with wine pairing are breads, dairy products, and meats.

BREADS

When considering fermentation of bread, sourdough immediately comes to mind. Since I live in Sonoma County — not far north of San Francisco — local sourdough is everywhere and bakers take great pride in their products. The distinguishing characteristic of sourdough bread compared with regular bread is the combination of organisms. Various strains of Lactobacillus bacteria, combined with wild or feral yeast, produce lactic acid sour flavor and carbon dioxide leavening. Home sourdough bread bakers often maintain a mixed culture or starter by periodically “feeding” it with flour and water. If you know someone who maintains a starter, they will probably share some with you, since the feeding inevitably also grows more starter.

It is possible for you to begin your own starter as well, reflecting the unique environment and terroir of your location. Our own Wine Wizard, Alison Crowe, posted the beginning of a new starter on social media during the 2022 harvest season. She used Chardonnay grapes from her Carneros Diamond Ranch vineyard for local microbiota. (She has also detailed her process in the August-September 2020 issue of WineMaker, also found at https:// winemakermag.com/wine-wizard/wineyeast-to-make-bread.) After beginning her indigenous ferment in September, she posted a picture of a beautiful sourdough loaf in early October.

Mary Karlin, in her book Mastering Fermentation, provides a detailed stepby-step method using organic raisins as a source for the wild microbes. Once you have your sourdough starter, you can make the full range of baked goods that ordinarily use conventional yeast — pizza, pancakes, rolls, and bread are all within your reach. For wine pairing, make a sourdough baguette or the similar Mexican roll from Guadalajara called birote salado. Sliced and arranged on a board with cheeses and cured meats, you will have a perfect match for any bold-flavored wine, red or white.

While sourdough may come to mind first, conventional yeast-leavened bread is also a fermented food. The Fleischmann’s yeast packets that my wife, Marty White, uses for her bread baking look a lot like the Red Star and Lalvin packages that we use in winemaking. For wine pairing, my new favorite yeast-baked bread treat is garlic knots, like you might get at a pizzeria. During the 2022 holiday season, Marty was making hamburger buns and some mini loaves with her favorite white bread yeast dough recipe. She gave me a little chunk of the dough and I made garlic knots to accompany a homemade

BY BOB PEAK

Three categories that offer almost certain success with wine pairing are breads, dairy products, and meats.

Homemade hamburger buns are easy to make and can be used for sandwiches of all kinds.

Photo by Bob Peak

pizza dinner. The pairing was outstanding with a local Sangiovese. Garlic knots are traditionally made from pizza crust dough, and this is the link I followed in adapting them to a traditional white bread recipe: https://www.simplyrecipes. com/recipes/garlic_knots/

DAIRY PRODUCTS

Cheese is the first food I want to mention here. While direct-acid-addition cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella also pair nicely with wine, today we are addressing microbes. One of the simplest of the cultured cheeses is chèvre, made from goat’s milk. Fromage blanc can be made from cow’s milk with the same supplies, culture, and equipment. Broadly, cheese cultures are various groups of bacteria classified as mesophilic, growing effectively at moderate temperatures, and thermophilic, thriving at slightly higher temperatures.

Making Chèvre

The culture I always use for chèvre is freeze-dried Danisco MA 4001 or the interchangeable variant MA 4002. This mixed culture contains three mesophilic Lactococcus cultures and one thermophilic Streptococcus culture. For these cheeses, milk is gently warmed to 86 °F (30 °C) and a small amount of the culture is stirred in. Many recipes also recommend adding calcium chloride to help ensure that sufficient calcium is available for good curd formation. Rennet, the coagulating agent, is then stirred in. I like to use Marzyme vegetarian rennet, but animal-derived rennet works equally well.

The fermenting milk then rests overnight at a temperature above 72 °F (22 °C) and curds form. In the morning, you gently ladle the curds into perforated cheese molds and allow whey to drain out until the following morning. This time, you salt the cake of cheese that now occupies the bottom quarter or third of your mold, gently turn it out, and salt it again. Allow to ripen overnight one more time and you have a delightful spreadable cheese. For goat cheese pairing, I especially like aromatic white wines like Gewürztraminer, Viognier, or Torrontés. Not quite as aromatic, I have offered my home-grown Chardonnay to cheesemaking class students with fresh chèvre on several occasions and received no complaints!

If you think you would like to try cheesemaking, it is easiest to buy a chèvre making kit from a supplier like New England Cheesemaking Supply, The Beverage People (the store I am now retired from), or one of the many wine supply

shops that also offer such kits, or search for a kit online. You will get culture, rennet, and molds in most kits, other supplies may vary.

Making Crème Fraîche

Crème fraîche is another cultured dairy product that is even easier than chèvre and has a historical and delightful wine pairing. For the culture, I have used the same MA 4001 mentioned earlier with very good results. For a little more buttery aroma, you can instead try Abiasa Aroma B. It is also a mesophilic blend but includes a couple of bacteria strains that produce more aromatic fermentation compounds.

For the crème, start with a pint (473 mL) of the best local heavy whipping cream you can find (not ultra-pasteurized). I like to make my crème fraîche directly in a pint-size mason jar to reduce cleanup and have a storage container all at once. If you want to do the same, pour off a couple of ounces (~60 mL) of the cream for another purpose before pouring the rest into the jar so you have a little headspace. Now put the jar of cream in a two-quart (2-L) saucepan and add warm water to the pot to cover about ¾ the height of the jar. Use a stainless steel iced-tea spoon to stir the cream, adding ¼ tsp. (1 mL) of cheese culture that you have dissolved in two ounces (60 mL) of chlorine-free water. Turn the heat on and gently raise the temperature of the cream to 86 °F (30 °C). Check the temperature of the water and adjust to 86–88 °F (30–31 °C) by adding hot water or an ice cube to the water bath as needed.

Loosely put the lid on the jar and put it all — pot, water bath, and jar of cream — someplace where it can stay warm. I like to use a polystyrene foam shipping box that neatly fits the pot and jar that I use. Let the cream culture sit overnight, then stir it up the next day. It will be thick, kind of like creamy yogurt, but it is not really done yet. Chill for a few hours and it will get to a stiffer, spreadable consistency and develop a tangier flavor.

It is delicious as-is to spread on a bagel or dolloped on fresh strawberries. It is also great for cooking — it blends very well and a half cup stirred into marinara sauce will give you a great tomato cream sauce instantly. Then there is the classic pairing: With caviar and Champagne (or homemade sparkling wine). Using toasted slices of that sourdough baguette or birote that you made at the start of this column, or using small sourdough buckwheat pancakes, spread with your crème fraîche. Top each one with a small scoop of sustainably raised caviar (like Tsar Nicoulai brand, farmed in

To make a tangy, well-stabilized salami, bacteria cultures are used to rapidly produce lactic acid and lower the pH to below 5.0 in four days or less . . .

California). Now pair with your crisp, refreshing, homemade sparkling wine and prepare to be delighted.

MEATS

Perhaps the most unusual of my various fermentations is meat. To make a tangy, well-stabilized salami, bacteria cultures are used to rapidly produce lactic acid and lower the pH to below 5.0 in four days or less, helping to protect against spoilage during the remainder of the month or so that it takes to dry salami. The salami I have enjoyed making in this manner is Calabrese salami, flavored with dried chili pepper flakes.

Making Calabrese Salami

For guidance to this category of cured meats I recommend The Art of Making Fermented Sausages by Marianski and Marianski. For this salami, I start with boneless pork shoulder and add some beef chuck and some pork back fat. In addition to chili flakes, flavorings include salt, garlic, fennel seed, black pepper, and red wine (homemade, of course).

The culture is Bactoferm F-RM-52 made by Chr. Hansen, a producer of several winemaking cultures as well. This blend consists of Lactobacillus sakei and Staphylococcus carnosus

The bacteria grow primarily on dextrose or fructose, so my recipe includes 30 g of dextrose (corn sugar) in a five-pound (2.3-kg) batch of sausage. For further protection against spoilage, I add 6 g of Instacure #2 that contains salt, sodium

nitrite, and sodium nitrate. After grinding the meat, mixing in the other ingredients, and finally stirring in the culture (dissolved in water), the sausage is stuffed into natural hog casings and tied into links.

The next step is where things get a bit odd. Since both bacteria strains grow most vigorously at 86 °F (30 °C), you cover the coils of sausage with clean towels and hold the meat at that temperature for 12 hours. To do that, I make a small curing space within my winemaking barn by hanging Mylar thermal blankets from the ceiling and placing a small space heater inside. If you try this, set it up a few days ahead so you can get the thermostat dialed in at 86 °F (30 °C). After that incubation period, the salamis hang at 60 °F (15.5 °C) and 60 to 70% humidity until they lose 30% of their original weight.

Although possibly shelf stable at that point, I keep mine in a zipper bag in the freezer, thawing one whenever I want it. As you might expect from this chili and red wine Italian-style salami, red wines pair especially well. I have found Sangiovese and Primitivo to be good choices, but any dry red with good acidity should pair well, too.

Now that you have tried fermenting all these foods, here is a suggestion for a grand finale (which I have not actually done). Make yourself a sourdough pizza crust, top it with your tomato cream sauce, add sliced Calabrese salami, finish with dollops of chèvre or fromage blanc, and pop it in the oven. Wood-fired, of course.

ADVANCED WINEMAKING

BY GABE AND JANE JACKSON

KEGGING WINE Thinking outside the bottle

For most wines produced, bottling is the final task. It is generally regarded as a laborious and expensive procedure — a kind of necessary evil — that literally seals the fate of the wine, for better or for worse. But it is not the only option! Kegging your wine is a viable alternative that can help you produce the freshest, best tasting, and most sustainable wine possible.

HOW TO KEG YOUR WINE

In the end, a keg is different from a carboy or a barrel in one fundamental and important respect — it can be pressurized. It is this ability that produces most of the advantages. There are several types of pressure-tolerant kegs on the market, but not all of them can be used at home.

Types of Kegs that Can be Used

In order to clean and fill a keg, it will be important that it can be opened. Yes, we can hear the sarcastic reply, “Thanks, Mr. Obvious.” But not all kegs can be easily opened. In order to make them safe for distribution, commercial kegs are generally sealed in such a way that it is nearly impossible to open them. Thankfully, there are several other options for the home winemaker:

Soda/syrup kegs (Corny kegs): This style of keg was originally manufactured for the distribution and serving of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The soda companies have long since abandoned them in favor of boxes of syrup connected to a dispensing system that blends the syrup at the faucet with carbonated water. The kegs were produced en masse and can be found easily throughout the country, either used or newly made. They have many nicknames based on either the manufacturer or the disconnect system. The most famous of the manufacturers,

Cornelius Company, is the source of the most prevalent nickname — Cornelius, or “Corny” keg.

More important than the nickname or manufacturer, however, is the disconnect system used. Pepsi and Coca-Cola developed different systems to ensure each was incompatible with the other, to the despair of those owning both types of kegs.

The Pepsi disconnect system is referred to as ball-lock and uses ball bearings to make the connection.

The Coca-Cola disconnect system is referred to as pin-lock and uses pins twisted into corresponding grooves to make the connection.

Sanke kegs: Sanke kegs are the current beer industry standard. You will find them behind every bar, everywhere. But, generally, these kegs cannot be used because they cannot be opened and closed easily. The internal spear that draws the beer to the tap is kept in place by a retainer ring that is extraordinarily difficult to remove.

Some homebrew/wine shops carry a Sanke-type keg that can be opened at home. The spear is screwed into place using threads and, therefore, can be removed and replaced easily.

Mini kegs: There are many types of “mini kegs” brought to market in recent years. Most of them use a mini-regulator to dispense small CO₂ cartridges of gas into the keg. We would advise that you avoid that type of gas system unless your goal is to produce tiny kegs of sparkling wine.

Some of these mini kegs can be accessorized with ball-lock soda keg posts, which will allow you to connect any type of gas (such as nitrogen). These are a great option for a kegging program because they allow you to easily take your kegged wine on the go.

In the end, a keg is different from a carboy or a barrel in one fundamental and important respect — it can be pressurized.

Photo courtesy of MoreWine!

If having sparkling wine on hand is a goal of yours, a simple draft setup with a carbon dioxide tank and regulator is easy to put together.

Types of Kegs to Avoid For Home Wine Purposes

Standard Sanke kegs: Any Sanke kegs with a spear held in place by a retainer ring is inappropriate for home wine kegging. By removing the spear permanently, they can be used as a storage vessel or fermenter, but it is generally impractical to re-seal them to hold pressure.

“One-Way” PET kegs: PET (polyethylene terephthalate) kegs have become popular in the wine and beer industry to cheaply distribute their beverage “one way,” never to be returned. For home use, they suffer the same issue as most Sanke kegs — the closure cannot be easily opened and closed for cleaning and filling.

TYPES OF GASES THAT CAN BE USED

The keg pressure must be provided by an inert gas: Argon, nitrogen, or CO₂. All three should be available at your local welding gas supplier or well-stocked homebrewing/winemaking shop. You should get comfortable with the differences between these gases, and the equipment needed to dispense them, before you set up your wine keg system.

The most important factor to consider when choosing a gas is deciding whether or not you want your wine sparkling. For still wines, argon or nitrogen are better choices, as they are much less soluble into the wine than CO₂. CO₂ will always carbonate the wine at least a little, even at room temperature. For sparkling wine production, CO₂ is the right approach.

If you are not interested in sparkling wines, an argon- or nitrogen-based keg system will keep your red, white, and rosé wines preserved and pouring without carbonation at whatever temperature you desire. Argon is very similar to nitrogen in behavior, but it is a much heavier gas, making it very useful for displacing air space in tanks before filling them.

If you review carefully the comparative weights of the gases in Table 1, you’ll note that nitrogen is lighter than air, while both argon and carbon dioxide are heavier than air. Argon is what scientists call an “inert noble gas” meaning it does

not react with wine or other substances. Nitrogen undergoes some reactions, but acts as an inert gas with wine. Carbon dioxide reacts with wine only to the extent that it dissolves and partially dissociates, producing bubbles and dissolved carbonic acid.

The heavy weight of argon and carbon dioxide can be a great advantage because they can be used to temporarily displace air in open spaces. Argon is the most expensive of these gases, however, so if you choose to work with it be sure you are not wasteful and that you have pressure-tested the whole system to avoid leaks.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

There isn’t a whole lot of equipment necessary to set up a basic draft system. You can easily find homebrew draft systems at most homebrew shops. However, these systems will often contain chromed brass parts that will corrode in the presence of wine acid and SO2. Take some care to avoid non-stainless steel metal parts.

For discussion, we like to split draft systems into two sides: The gas side and the beverage side. On the gas side you will need:

• Gas tank (argon, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide)

• Gas-specific regulator (be sure to get the proper regulator for your type of gas) and potentially a tank adapter.

• Food-grade gas line and hose clamps

• Gas disconnect

On the beverage side you will need:

• Keg (typically a 5-gallon/19-L stainless steel soda keg)

• Beverage disconnect (stainless steel is ideal to prevent corrosion of non-stainless metal parts from sulfite and acid in the wine)

• Food-grade beverage line and hose clamps

• Tap/faucet (food-grade plastic or stainless steel)

Optional Accessories and Tools

If you are using more than one disconnect system, you may want to invest in adapters to more easily interchange between the systems.

• Flare hose barbs — these allow you to remove a disconnect from the tubing without cutting the tubing and replace it with a different type of disconnect. They can only be used with flare end disconnects, so pay attention as you select your disconnects.

• Sanke to ball-lock adapters — if you are using both Sanke and ball-lock kegs, these are great.

Left: Tank with CGA-580 nitrogen-style female threads. Right: Tank with CGA-320 CO2-style male threads.

Mini kegs (left photo) and ball-lock post cap (photo on right) are the perfect combo for taking your wine on the go. Table 1: Weights of Beverage Gases in Reference to Air (as specific gravity of gas at 68 °F/20 °C):

Photo courtesy of The Beverage People

ADVANCED WINEMAKING

The following tools will come in handy:

• Brushes to clean the kegs and faucets, and keg line cleaners (such as BLC).

• Faucet plugs

• Faucet wrench

• Pin-lock socket to remove posts from pin-lock kegs

• 7⁄8-in. combination wrench with star pattern on one side, and 7⁄8-in. hex on the other side. This tool will allow removal of the posts on many ball-lock kegs.

PREPARING THE KEG

Clean and sanitize your keg before filling it. Use a good stainless steel detergent such as sodium percarbonate or PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash). If possible, you may want to partially fill the keg with boiling water before beginning the cleaning process. Allow the boiling water to pasteurize the keg for a while, then top with cold water and add your cleaner. For sanitizing, use a food-safe, no-rinse sanitizer such as iodophor or a phosphoric acid-based product. StarSan is a good choice because its foaming ability is also handy for pressure checking your system for leaks.

Before you fill the keg, you should displace the oxygen by pushing a full keg of water or sanitizing solution with your inert gas. Vent the pressure using the lid relief valve. Now you may transfer the wine by siphon. Seal the keg lid so it’s ready for pressure. Pressurize to 10–12 PSI then vent a few times to remove air from the headspace that may have entered during transfer.

PRESSURE CHECKING FOR LEAKS

DON’T SKIP THIS STEP. We’ve seen many sad faces of customers returning to our store with empty gas canisters, still uncertain how their gas got away from them. Unless you are going to leave your gas tank turned off at the main valve at all times, we recommend you perform the following procedure on pressure checking a draft system.

Tools and Supplies:

• Yellow Teflon tape

• Spray bottle

• StarSan sanitizer

• Bucket full of water

• Wrenches

• Screwdriver or crimper tool (as appropriate)

Step by Step:

1. Prepare a spray bottle with a dilute solution of StarSan.

2. Turn on your draft system and set the regulator very high, around 50 PSI. This high pressure is used to expose small leaks that you might have difficulty identifying under lower pressure.

3. Any fittings at the end of hoses can be submerged in the bucket of water. Watch for bubbles to emerge from the fittings. If you see any, tighten up those hose clamps and/ or investigate whether the fittings themselves are holding pressure as needed.

4. For other parts of your draft system, such as the gas tank and regulator, which cannot be submerged in water, you will use the spray bottle. StarSan is a foamy no-rinse

sanitizer. Spray all the threaded connections and hose connections remaining in the system. Watch for bubbles in the sanitizer. If you identify a leaky pipe thread connection, disassemble that connection and wrap the threads with yellow gas Teflon, which is thicker than the more common white Teflon tape. If the connection between the regulator and the gas tank is leaking, DO NOT USE TEFLON. For CO2 tanks, that connection requires a rubber gasket, which should be replaced.

5. When no more leaks can be identified at the tank, regulator, hose connections, or disconnects — you are all set! Proceed with confidence.

STORING AND SERVING THE WINE

The kegs should be placed in a conditioned space with temperature needs as follows:

• For still red wines: 50–55 °F (10–13 °C)

• For still white wines: 40–45 °F (4–7 °C)

• For sparkling wines: 32–38 °F (0–3 °C)

Set the regulator pressure as needed for your type of wine:

• For still red and white wines using argon or nitrogen: 5–10 PSI

• For sparkling wines: 10–30 PSI (based on your preference for carbonation level)

One important aspect about serving sparkling wine revolves around the tubing length between the keg and the faucet, called balancing the draft system. That is a bit beyond the scope of this article, but we recommend the following: https://byo.com/article/balancing-your-draft-system/

Faucet Options

The serving faucet can be a simple “picnic faucet,” a more glamorous stainless faucet installed onto a shank, or a draft tower.

Picnic faucets: These are made of plastic and work fine. If you are making sparkling wine, the picnic tap 2.0 is a great option because its flow restrictor slows the pour.

Stainless faucets and shanks: These can be installed into any fridge door or wooden wall. Extended spout faucets are popular for wine dispensing and give a look that is distinctly different than the typical beer faucet. Be certain to avoid chromed brass parts that will corrode with wine exposure.

Stainless draft tower: These are an option if you are working with a converted chest freezer (on a temperature override controller) as your temperature conditioned space, or building a bar in your home. They can be mounted onto the top door of the freezer or on top of the bar.

Bottling from a Keg

Bottling the wine from your keg system is a simple matter for still wines — just hold the open wine bottle up to the faucet and fill it up. We highly recommend, however, that just before you fill it, you first purge the air out of the bottle with your inert gas. For this, you should have a gas purge wand that can be connected to the gas source. Purge, fill, and cork it. It’s ready to party!

WINEMAKER DIRECTORY

ALABAMA

THE WINE SMITH

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(251) 645-5554

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THE BEVERAGE PEOPLE

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Fast Shipping, Great Service, Cheesemaking & Brewing too.

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www.brehmvineyards.com

grapes@brehmvineyards.com

Phone: (510) 527.3675

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DELTA PACKING CO. OF LODI, INC.

6021 E. Kettleman Lane

Lodi 95240

(209) 334-1023

fax: (209) 334-0811

bcostamagna@deltapacking.com

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8865 Airport Rd., Ste. H Redding 96002 (530) 243-BEER (2337) or (530)-221-WINE (9463) www.norcalbrewingsolutions.com

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www.valleyvintner.com

75+ years wine making expertise!

Owned & Operated by winemakers serving the winemaking community. “The Vine, The Time, The Wine”

COLORADO

THE BREW HUT

15120 East Hampden Ave. Aurora 80014 (303) 680-8898

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Complete Winexpert line! Fresh fruit, equipment & chemicals! We Rent Equipment Too!

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Serving Colorado & Utah winemakers since 1978

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BREW & WINE HOBBY

Featuring Winexpert & RJ Spagnols kits. Area’s widest selection of wine kits, beer making supplies & equipment 12 Cedar St. East Hartford 06108 (860) 528-0592 or 1-800-352-4238

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MUSTO WINE GRAPE CO., LLC

101 Reserve Road Hartford 06114

1-877-812-1137

sales@juicegrape.com

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MWG services home winemakers, wineries, breweries, cideries, distilleries, and homebrew shops. We provide access to the best grapes, juices, equipment, supplies, and knowledge available. Let us help you make your next wine your favorite wine.

NORTHEAST WINEMAKING

10 Robert Jackson Way Plainville 06062 (860) 793-2700

www.northeastwinemaking.com

New Year-Round Showroom Open in Plainville with 2nd full service location in Hartford, CT and satellite location in Chelsea, MA. Your one stop shop for fresh grapes, juice, equipment and accessories!

FLORIDA

PARDO WINE GRAPES

3314 N. Perry Ave. Tampa 33603 (813) 340-3052

vince@pardowinegrapes.com www.pardowinegrapes.com

Distributors of quality California (fall) and Chilean (spring) wine grapes and fresh juice to Florida winemakers for over 80 years.

ILLINOIS

CHICAGOLAND WINEMAKERS INC.

689 West North Ave. Elmhurst (630) 834-0507

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Complete line of home winemaking and brewing supplies & equipment since 1971.

INDIANA

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INDIANAPOLIS 5127 East 65th St. Indianapolis 46220 (317) 257-WINE (9463) or toll-free 1-888-463-2739 info@greatfermentations.com www.greatfermentations.com

QUALITY WINE AND ALE SUPPLY/ HOMEBREWIT.COM

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Online: www.Homebrewit.com

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BLUFF STREET BREW HAUS 372 Bluff Street

Dubuque (563) 582-5420

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BACCHUS & BARLEYCORN, LTD.

6633 Nieman Road

Shawnee 66203

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2061 E. Santa Fe Olathe 66062

(913) 768-1090 or

1-866-296-2739 (BYO-BREW)

Secure ordering on line: www.homebrewproshoppe.com

Complete line of wine & beer making supplies & equipment.

KENTUCKY

WINEMAKERS & BEERMAKERS SUPPLY

9475 Westport Rd. Louisville 40241

(502) 425-1692

www.winebeersupply.com

Impeccable line of wine & beer making supplies. Superior grade of juice from Winexpert. Quality malt from Briess & Muntons. Family owned store since 1972.

MARYLAND

THE FLYING BARREL

1781 North Market St. Frederick

(301) 663-4491

fax: (301) 663-6195

www.flyingbarrel.com

Maryland’s 1st Wine-On-Premise & large selection of homewine supplies! Wine judge on staff!

MARYLAND HOMEBREW

6770 Oak Hall Lane, #108 Columbia 21045

1-888-BREWNOW

www.mdhb.com

We carry the VinoSuperiore frozen Italian must along with Winexpert Kits. Everything you need to make your own wine & cheese. Visit us in-person or online. We ship everywhere

MASSACHUSETTS

BEER AND WINE HOBBY, INC.

85 Andover St. Danvers 01923

1-800-523-5423

e-mail: bwhinfo@beer-wine.com

website: www.beer-wine.com

Brew on YOUR Premise™

For the most discriminating wine & beer hobbyist.

THE WITCHES BREW INC.

12 Maple Ave. Foxborough 02035

(508) 543-0433

steve@thewitchesbrew.com

www.thewitchesbrew.com

You’ve Got the Notion, We’ve Got the Potion

WINEMAKER DIRECTORY

WATERLOO CONTAINER CO.

MICHIGAN

MACOMB VINTNER SUPPLY

44443 Phoenix Dr. Sterling Heights (248) 495-0801

www.macombvintnersupply.com

Purveyor of grapes and grape juices for the winemaker. L’uva Bella, Mosto Bella & Chilean Bello Brands, and Extra-Virgin Olive Oil.

MID-MICHIGAN VINTNER SUPPLY

Grand Rapids & South Lyon (517) 898-3203

www.Mid-Michiganvintnersupply.com

info@Mid-Michiganvintnersupply.com

Purveyor of fresh grape juices for the winemaker. L’uva Bella, Mosto Bella & Chilean Bello Brands.

MORGAN VINEYARD

15775 40th Avenue

Coopersville 49404 (616) 648-3025 morgangrapes@gmail.com

MorganVineyard.com

Supplier of high quality wine grapes conveniently located in West Michigan.

SICILIANO’S MARKET

2840 Lake Michigan Dr. N.W. Grand Rapids 49504 (616) 453-9674

fax: (616) 453-9687

e-mail: sici1@sbcglobal.net

www.sicilianosmkt.com

Largest Wine Making inventory in West Michigan. Now selling beer and winemaking supplies on-line.

TAYLOR RIDGE VINEYARDS

3843 105th Ave.

Allegan 49010 (269) 521-4047

bctaylor@btc-bci.com www.taylorridgevineyard.com

18 Varieties of Wine Grapes and Juices. Vinifera, New York State, Minnesota and French hybrids. Providing wine grapes and juices for over 30 years.

MISSOURI

HOME BREWERY

1967 West Boat St. Ozark

1-800-321-BREW (2739) brewery@homebrewery.com

www.homebrewery.com

Since 1984, providing excellent Service, Equipment and Ingredients. Beer, Wine, Mead, Soda and Cheese.

NEW YORK

DOC’S HOMEBREW SUPPLIES

451 Court Street Binghamton 13904 (607) 722-2476

www.docsbrew.com

Full-service beer & wine making shop serving NY’s Southern Tier & PA’s Northern Tier since 1991. Extensive line of Winexpert kits, supplies and equipment.

FULKERSON WINERY & JUICE PLANT

5576 State Route 14

Dundee 14837 (607) 243-7883

fax: (607) 243-8337

www.fulkersonw inery.com

Fresh Finger Lakes grape juice available during harvest. Large selection of home winemaking supplies. Visit our website to browse and order supplies. Open year round 10-5, extended seasonal hours. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @fulkersonwinery.

MAIN STREET WINES & SUPPLIES

249 Main St. Arcade 14009 (585) 492-2739

fax: (585) 492-2777

mainstwines@yahoo.com

Plenty of wine kits available to make your own wine. Full line of winemaking supplies and accessories for your convenience. Tue-Fri 10-6; Sat 10-3 or by appt. Like us on Facebook.

NIAGARA TRADITION

HOMEBREWING SUPPLIES

1296 Sheridan Drive Buffalo 14217 (800) 283-4418 or (716) 877-8767

www.nthomebrew.com

We feature a complete line of supplies for making wine, beer, mead, cider and cheese.

PANTANO’S WINE GRAPES & HOMEBREW

249 Rte 32 S. New Paltz 12561 (845) 255-5201 or (845) 706-5152 (cell) pantanowineandbeer@yahoo.com

www.pantanosbeerwine.com

Find Us On Facebook. Your source for wine & beer making supplies and equipment. Grapes and Juice from California, Italy & Chile in season, wine kits and all juice pails (6 gal) year round. Classes available. We now carry Distilling Products and Stills.

PROSPERO EQUIPMENT CORP.

123 Castleton St. Pleasantville 10570 (914) 769-6252

fax: (914) 769-6786

info@prosperocorp.biz

www.prosperocorp.biz

The source to all your winemaking equipment.

TEN THOUSAND VINES WINERY

8 South Buffalo St. Hamburg 14075

(716) 646-9979

mike@TenThousandVines.com

www.TenThousandVines.com

Wine supplies, juice and advice.

WALKER’S WINE JUICE

2860 N.Y. Route 39 – Since 1955

Forestville

(716) 679-1292

www.walkerswinejuice.com

Over 50 varieties of “Hot-Pack”

Grape, Fruit and Berry Juice, Requiring No Refrigeration, shipped by UPS all year. Supplying over 800 wineries in 37 states!

2311 N.Y. Route 414 Waterloo 13165 (315) 539-3922

contactus@waterloocontainer.com

www.waterloocontainer.com

Supplier of wine bottles, corks, and closures to all sizes of winemakers.

NORTH CAROLINA

ALTERNATIVE BEVERAGE (BELMONT)

1500 River D., Suite 104 Belmont 28012

Advice Line: (704) 825-8400

Order Line: 1-800-365-2739

www.ebrew.com

44 years serving all home winemakers & brewers’ needs! Come visit for a real Homebrew Super Store experience!

ALTERNATIVE BEVERAGE (CHARLOTTE)

3911 South Blvd.

Charlotte 28209

Advice Line: (704) 825-8400

Order Line: 1-800-365-2739

www.ebrew.com

44 years serving all home winemakers & brewers’ needs! Visit our stores to learn how we can help you make the best wine you can make.

ALTERNATIVE BEVERAGE (CORNELIUS)

19725 Oak St.

Cornelius 28031

Voice Line: (704) 527-2337

Fax Line: (704) 522-6427

www.ebrew.com

44 years serving all home winemakers & brewers’ needs! Visit our stores to learn how we can help you make the best wine you can make.

AMERICAN BREWMASTER

3021-5 Stony Brook Dr. Raleigh 27604 (919) 850-0095

Text: (984) 251-3030

www.americanbrewmaster.com

Wine Kits, Wine Ingredients and additives, corks and bottles since 1983! Wow. 1983!

ASHEVILLE BREWERS SUPPLY 712-B Merrimon Ave. Asheville 28804 (828) 358-3536

www.ashevillebrewers.com

Value. Quality. Service. Since 1994.

CAROLINA WINE SUPPLY

329 W. Maple St. Yadkinville 27055 (336) 677-6831

fax: (336) 677-1048

www.carolinawinesupply.com

Home Winemaking Supplies & Support.

OHIO

THE GRAPE AND GRANARY 915 Home Ave. Akron 44310 (330) 633-7223

www.grapeandgranary.com

Concentrates, Fresh juice, Wine on Premise.

LABEL PEELERS BEER & WINE MAKING SUPPLIES, INC.

211 Cherry St. Kent 44240 (330) 678-6400

info@labelpeelers.com

www.labelpeelers.com

Specializing in winemaking/ homebrew supplies & equipment. Free monthly classes.

Hours: Mon-Sun 10am-7pm

OKLAHOMA

HIGH GRAVITY 6808 S. Memorial Drive Tulsa 74133 (918) 461-2605

e-mail: store@highgravitybrew.com

www.highgravitybrew.com

Join our Frequent Fermenters Club!

OREGON

F.H. STEINBART CO. 234 SE 12th Ave. Portland 97214 (503) 232-8793

fax: (503) 238-1649

e-mail: info@fhsteinbart.com

www.fhsteinbart.com

Brewing and Wine making supplies since 1918!

HOME FERMENTER

123 Monroe Street

Eugene 97402 (541) 485-6238

www.homefermenter.com

Providing equipment, supplies and advice to winemakers and homebrewers for over 40 years.

PENNSYLVANIA

BOOTLEGGERS BREW SHOP, LLC

917 Pleasant Valley Blvd. Altoona 16602 (814) 931-9962

http://bootleggersbrewshop.com

bootleggersbrewshop@gmail.com

Find us on Facebook! Central PA’s LARGEST homebrew supplies store! We carry seasonal cold pressed wine juices from around the world. Special orders welcome!

NITTANY VALLEY TRUE VALUE

1169 Nittany Valley Drive

Bellefonte

(814) 383-2809 f

ax: (814) 383-4884

Supplies - Equipment - Classes. Fresh grapes & juice in season.

PRESQUE ISLE WINE CELLARS

9440 W. Main Rd. (US Rte. 20) North East 16428 (800) 488-7492

www.piwine.com

Your one stop shop! Complete service since 1964, helping you make great wines. We specialize in small winery and amateur wine supplies and equipment. Check out our website www.piwine.com or stop by and see us. Fresh grapes and juice at harvest.

WINEMAKER DIRECTORY

SCOTZIN BROTHERS

65 N. Fifth St.

Lemoyne 17043

(717) 737-0483 or 800-791-1464

www.scotzinbros.com

email: shop@scotzinbros.com

WINE and Beer MAKERS PARADISE!

WASHINGTON

BADER BEER & WINE SUPPLY

711 Grand Blvd.

Vancouver, WA 98661

1-800-596-3610

Sign up for our free e-newsletter @ Baderbrewing.com

BREHM VINEYARDS®

www.brehmvineyards.com

grapes@brehmvineyards.com

Phone: (510) 527-3675

Fresh grape pick-up in Underwood, WA

Frozen grapes in Portland, OR & Scranton, PA

Ultra-premium grapes for home winemakers for over 40 years! Sold at harvest or shipped frozen across N. America year-round. Visit our vineyard 1 hour east of Portland in a National Scenic Area.

JON’S HOMEBREW AND WINE SUPPLY

1430 E. Main Ave., #1430C

Puyallup 98372 (253) 286-7607

jon@jonshomebrew.com

jonshomebrew.com

Puyallup’s home for Home Beer and Winemaking supplies!

WISCONSIN

THE CELLAR BREW SHOP 465 N. Washburn St.

Oshkosh 54904 (920) 517-1601

www.thecellarhomebrew.com

cellarbrewshop@outlook.com

Beer & Wine ingredients and equipment. Extensive inventory at Competitive prices, bulk discounts. Great service and free advice from experienced staff.

HOUSE OF HOMEBREW

410 Dousman St.

Green Bay (920) 435-1007

staff@houseofhomebrew.com

www.houseofhomebrew.com

Beer, Wine, Cider, Mead, Soda, Coffee, Tea, Cheese Making.

WINE & HOP SHOP

1919 Monroe St. Madison 53711 (608) 257-0099

www.wineandhop.com

wineandhop@gmail.com

Madison, WI’s locally owned homebrewing and winemaking headquarters for over 50 years. Fast, affordable shipping to anywhere. Use promo code WineMaker at checkout for discounts. Free expert advice too!

CANADA ALBERTA

BREW FOR LESS 10774 - 95th Street

Edmonton T5H 2C9 (708) 422-0488

brewforless.com

info@brewforless.com

Edmonton’s Largest Wine & Beer Making Supply Store

READER SERVICE

GRAPES TO GLASS 5308 -17th Ave. SW

Calgary T3E 6S6 (403) 243-5907

www.grapestoglass.com

Calgary’s largest selection of brewing, winemaking & distilling supplies. On-line shopping available with delivery via Canada Post.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

BOSAGRAPE WINERY & BREW SUPPLIES 6908 Palm Ave.

Burnaby V5J 4M3 (604) 473-WINE

fax: (604) 433-2810

info@bosagrape.com

www.bosagrape.com

Ingredients, equipment, labware & supplies for brew & winemaking. Still Spirits, Hanna, Stavin Oak, Brehm Vineyards, Mosti juices, Brewcraft, Marchisio, Accuvin, Chemetrics, Vintner’s Harvest, Lalvin, Buon Vino, Vintage Shop.

DRY FINISH

BY MARIAM TABAGARI

THE CRADLE OF WINE

Winemaking in the country of Georgia

Iam a viticulture student at an agrarian university located in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia. Georgia is considered the cradle of wine, as archaeologists have traced the world’s first known wine creations back to the people of the South Caucasus some 8,000 years ago. Since then, the love of wine and taking care of vineyards has passed down from generation to generation and our traditions still remain vibrant.

UNIQUELY GEORGIA

Georgia’s climate and territorial conditions are perfect for wine production. Here, extreme weather is very unusual; summers are sunny, while winters are mild and frost-free. The country is rich with natural springs that come from the Caucasus Mountains. The people of the South Caucasus domesticated the native grape, Vitis vinifera sylvestris, creating V. vinifera vinifera and found that if the juice from these grapes were buried in a pit over winter, it turned into wine.

Even in 6000 BCE folks of the region were using the qvevri — large, egg-shaped, terracotta clay pots for the fermentation and maturation of wine. Qvevri differ from amphorae in some important ways: They’re buried underground and they are egg shaped the entire way around. Being buried underground provides a natural measure of temperature stabilization but also means that given their size and location, qvevri are unsuitable for movement. Amphorae will have a flat base in order to allow them to free stand, come in a wide array of sizes, and are not buried underground.

Grapes are partially pressed before they enter qvevri for fermentation. Depending on the climate of the region, skins and stems may also be included, though in colder regions this can

develop undesirable “green” characteristics. At the end of the process, wine is transferred to a freshly cleaned qvevri or another storage vessel until bottling. Occasionally, it is bottled right away.

In Georgia, every drink has its toast. At all gatherings there is a toastmaster, one person who introduces each toast, which we call Tamada. Every toast is interpreted by table members before drinking to it and one must never drink wine without toasting (and the same goes for beer!).

WINE CHARACTERISTICS

Though it is now grown throughout Georgia as well as abroad, the Rkatsiteli white grape variety is believed to have first emerged in eastern Georgia in the first century. Rkatsiteli makes noticeably acidic but balanced white wines with a full flavor profile and good body. Restrained and refreshing, with crisp green apple flavors and hints of quince and white peach, Rkatsiteli wines are more complex when produced using the traditional Georgian qvevri method.

The leading red variety in Georgia, Saperavi is indigenous to the country. Saperavi are deep in fruit character, yet brisk with acidity; this gutsy grape presents a unique alternative to everyday reds. Its name means “the place of color,” so named because it is one of the few teinturier grape varieties in the world — a grape with a red flesh as well as red skin. Saperavi wine reflects a deep, inky, and often fully opaque color. It has aromas and flavors of dark berries, licorice, grilled meat, tobacco, chocolate, and spices.

For generations, Georgia has proudly claimed the title of the birthplace of wine. The beloved mother Georgia statue overlooking the capital city of Tbilisi holds a sword in one hand and a wine cup in the other — symbols of the Georgian people’s passionate defense of our freedom, alongside our warm hospitality.

For generations, Georgia has proudly claimed the title of the birthplace of wine.

Photo by Mariam Tabagari

Sunken qvevri terracotta pots serve as the traditional fermentation vessel of choice for winemakers in the country of Georgia.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE ORIGINAL!

THE ORIGINAL ALLJUICE WILL INSTANTLY BECOME ONE OF THE BEST ADDITIONS TO YOUR CELLAR

AVAILABLE STYLES

Experienced winemakers looking to complement their skills and patience will be rewarded with our most popular 23L shelfstable flagship vinification product. Explore the possibilities with superior quality 100% Grape Must varietals sourced from the finest regions around the world.

NO water has been removed from our 100% Grape Must therefore, no water needs to be added. Available year-round.

Produce quality wines and watch the characteristics develop!

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Available at participating stores where craft winemaking kits are sold. Contact your retailer to check availability in your area.

LIMITED RELEASE. While supplies last.