Ron discusses the best practices for cleaning and sanitizing your wine making equipment. Keeping everything clean and sanitized is a major factor in how your wine will turn out.  

If you don't want to de-stem and crush fresh grapes to make wine, then try using fresh wine juice. I stress the word FRESH. It's important that you start with fresh, high-quality pressed juices.

Time for your second racking?

We will be offering Muscat Canelli for 2015!

We are very excited to be able to offer for the first time in 2015: Barbera from the LMP ranch at Lanza Vineyards

Great Wine Comes From Great Grapes

Great wines start with great grapes. So, it’s important to select high-quality fruit. Here’s what to look for in a Sauvignon Blanc grape profile.

Cool climate appellations will yield wines with citrusy aromatics, forceful fruit, and herb influences. While warm climate appellations will result in wines with pronounced floral aromatics, which lend tropical fruit and melon elements to your wines.

Whichever wine region you select, the Brix profile (amount of sugar) of your fruit should range from 22 to 25. Avoid overripe high brix fruit.

The acid profile is a bit higher for Sauvignon Blanc than most vinifera wines. A concentration of .7 grams T/A per liter is the minimum desired, with an acceptable range as high as .85 to .9 grams per liter. This range will make for a clean, crisp presentation with brisk acidity.

You want to obtain a pH value of 3.5 or below. At this strength, stability in color and clarity are improved — a vital characteristic for a proper presentation.