Winemakers often get overly ambitious at the start of a harvest season. It’s an opportunity to try new techniques, alter wine additions, and create something they previously imagined. However, conquering the fundamentals associated with winemaking often provides a solid foundation for crafting really great wines. This includes things like: Having sound sanitation practices. Receiving and […]
Harvest
Harvest is Coming: Are You Ready?
One of the benefits of working with a winemaking consultant is having someone readily available reminding you to prepare for harvest. Harvest sneaks up on all of us. Every year! Without fail. The time is now to prepare the cellar for the 2021 harvest season. Here are some suggestions, tools, and resources to get you […]
Top 4 Tips for Post-Harvest Success
After the crunch of harvest, the end of the calendar year can feel physically tiring and emotionally taxing, especially in 2020. While the season shifts to holiday wine sales, it’s important to remember that now is also a critical time in the cellar. It is vital to ensure that good production notes were taken through […]
Grapes Have Disease? Try These Wine Processing Options
Most grape diseases have an influence in wine quality in a detrimental way. Winemakers, however, can make processing decisions to help minimize that negative influence from grape disease on wine quality. For a full list of production choices when dealing with diseased fruit, please visit the webinar and downloadable notes, “Creatively Perfecting Wines from Challenging […]
2020 Harvest Brings Challenges to Winemakers
This year has thrown a lot of challenges towards us all, and the harvest season seems to be no exception. Depending on the grapes’ growing location, there may be unexpected challenges winemakers are going to have to overcome in order to produce quality, commercially sound wine. Below summarizes the key observations I have seen to-date […]
3 Things Every Winemaker can do Now to Improve This Year’s Wine Harvest
Some changes require big investment. But many wine quality improvements come with little adjustments to daily cellar practices. These are three places in the cellar that I consider fundamental to developing quality wine. Without these fundamentals, getting stuck in winemaking routines becomes the norm. Old habits die hard, as they say, and without persistence to […]
