2024 Vidal
October 2024 Today I met the owners of Glade Spring Vineyard to get the Vidal, which is already crushed. This is the last wine of the year. Ingredients Fruit 130 lbs Vidal Maceration Enzyme...
Tagged: white wine
2023 Vidal
October 2023 This morning I drove to a friend’s vineyard in Glade Springs VA, a 4 hour drive. She and her husband picked Chambourcin and Vidal yesterday, and we crushed 120+ pounds each of...
Making White Wine from Red Grapes
Many moons ago I had an after-work drink with co-workers, and was going to get the first round. My supervisor asked for Zinfandel, and I asked “white or red?” Knowing her, I figured white,...
Determining Initial Brix / Specific Gravity
A common question on WineMakingTalk is “What should the initial brix / specific gravity (SG) of a wine be?” The short, but totally unhelpful answer is, “Whatever you want it to be?” This is...
2022 Sauvignon Blanc
April 2022 Label Peelers had a 10% off sale on Finer Wine Kits, and on top of my 10% off for life on FWK, a pair of Tavola kits averaged $75 each, not including...
2021 Chardonnay
November 2021 The screwy 2021 grape season and Patrick’s wedding messed up my grape plans — delivery was on his wedding day, and I was fairly certain he’d not be pleased if Eric &...
2020 Sauvignon Blanc
October 2020 Along with grapes, we can order barrels of white juice — the catch is that it’s in 50 gallon barrels, so enough people have to be interested to buy the entire barrel....
2020 Chardonnay
September 2020 In the summer 2020, Patrick asked me to make wine for his wedding reception, scheduled for October 2021. After a fair amount of thought, I made this one and a Cabernet Sauvignon....
2019 Symphony/Gewurztraminer
April 2019 Last November I ordered two of the Winexpert 2018 Limited Edition kits, Corazon and Symphony-Gewurztraminer. They arrived a couple of weeks ago. The Symphony-Gewurztraminer is a blend … when I ordered it,...
2018 Verdicchio
October 2018 American Brewmaster has some kits on sale. They’re old – the R J Spagnols Grand Cru Verdicchio I purchased is dated February 2017, so it’s a year and a half old. I’ve...