The Wine Maker's Answer Book: Solutions to Every Problem; Answers to Every Question

242 Pages·2007·1.8 MB·English

by  Alison Crowe

THE WINE MAKER’S
ANSWER BOOK
THE WINE MAKER’S
ANSWER BOOK
Solutions to Every Problem
Answers to Every Question
Alison Crowe
Columnist for
Wine Maker.
The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by
publishing practical information that encourages
personal independence in harmony with the environment.
Edited by Lisa H. Hiley and Margaret Sutherland Technical editing by Daniel
Pambianchi Art direction and text design by Vicky Vaughn Cover design by
Kent Lew
Text production by Jennifer Jepson Smith Illustrations by Alison Kolesar
Indexed by Susan Olason, Indexes & Knowledge Maps © 2007 by WineMaker
magazine All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief
passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may
any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or other — without written permission from the publisher.
The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our
knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the
author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in
connection with the use of this information. For additional information please
contact Storey Publishing, 210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247.
Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for
customized editions. For further information, please call 1-800-793-9396.
Printed in China by Regent Publishing Services 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crowe, Alison.
The Winemaker’s answer book / by Alison Crowe.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-58017-656-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Wine and wine making. I.
WineMaker. II. Title.
TP548.C695 2007
641.2’2—dc22
2006102591
DEDICATION
For my grandmothers, Mary Hartley Crowe and Bernice Blythe Michel
Ranch managers, world travelers, master gardeners, expert chefs, and California
pioneers, they taught me a woman’s place is doing whatever she sets her mind
to.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I greatly enjoy lending my winemaking knowledge and experience to the readers
of WineMaker magazine, but at the end of the day (sometimes at 2:00 A.M. with
grapes in my hair), I live and work as a professional winemaker. I owe heartfelt
thanks to many who have contributed to my career. I am grateful for the
friendship of Dr. Andy Waterhouse, Dr. Jim Lapsley, Dr. Roger Boulton, Dr.
Ralph Kunkee, and Dr. Jim Wolpert at the UC-Davis Department of Viticulture
& Enology. I also have had the fortune to log long and hard hours with some of
the world’s most talented winemakers, including Michael Michaud, Eric
Laumann, Don Blackburn, Randall Grahm, Laureano Gomez, and Michel
Rolland. Their life lessons, from Mozart’s sonatas to Argentine BBQ, go well
beyond wine.
I also want to thank my winemaking colleagues and neighbors Jef Stebben,
SaDawna McCart-Stebben, Carol Wilson, Sunshine Gladish-Cowgill, Bruce
Devlin, Danielle Cyrot, Haydn Wilson, and Nicole Haller-Wilson. Winemakers
and wine appreciators, they remind me to stop and smell not just the Cabernet
Sauvignon but the roses as well. Elizabeth Hoff, Hope Thrane, Jim Baird, Susan
Andersen, and Maureen Foley, as well as editors past and present at the Davis
Enterprise, Vineyard & Winery Management, and Wine Business Monthly have
all helped me tremendously. Brad Ring of WineMaker and Lisa Hiley of Storey
Publishing, along with their staffs, have been the real “superheroes” of this book.
Lastly and most importantly, I thank my husband, photographer Chris Purdy,
and the Crowe and Purdy families for their love and support.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Basics of the Winemaking Process
Chapter 2 Choosing and Using Winemaking Equipment
Chapter 3 From Vine to Vat: Wine from Fresh Grapes
Chapter 4 Wine Chemistry 101: Sulfites, Acid, pH, and More
Chapter 5 Choosing and Using the Right Yeast
Chapter 6 Fermentation: Bubbles without Troubles
Chapter 7 Aging, Oaking, Fining, and Filtering
Chapter 8 All About Bottling
Chapter 9 Smelly Wine and Other Tough Problems
Chapter 10 Evaluating, Serving, and Enjoying Your Wine
Chapter 11 Fruits and Roots: Country and Kit Winemaking
Chapter 12 Different Sips: From Sparkling to Strong to Strange
Glossary
Resources
Index
FOREWORD
When will my fermentation stop? Why did my fermentation stop? The one thing
I can count on as publisher of WineMaker magazine is that my e-mail in-box will
have questions each day from winemakers asking for help and looking for
answers. Making your own wine is an incredibly fun and fulfilling hobby, but it
comes with a host of questions. Some questions are obvious ones we all will face
in our winemaking pursuits, while others pop up only when something has gone
horribly wrong with our latest batch. And, of course, there are questions that are
just plain strange, such as one asking about making wine from Sprite soda. All of
these questions are important to ask — and answer — because they help build a
greater base of knowledge among winemakers, which results in a more
successful and more satisfying hobby for each of us.
When WineMaker magazine launched in 1998, we realized from the start the
value and importance of seeking out reader questions and answering them in
each issue. We were lucky to bring Alison Crowe on board as our Wine Wizard
right from the premier issue to answer all those questions. Fresh out of the
renowned enology program at the University of California-Davis, Alison
brought a wealth of wisdom as well as a sense of humor to her answers. Since
then, Alison has answered literally hundreds of questions spanning the world of
winemaking.
Winemakers can’t seem to get enough of Alison’s Q&A department. Each
year we send out our annual reader survey and each year readers tell us their
favorite department in the magazine is the Wine Wizard because of the variety
of questions and the depth of answers it provides each issue. The “Wine Wizard
Question of the Week” section of winemakermag.com is among the most visited
areas of our Web site. Simply put, winemakers have lots of questions and love
reading Alison’s answers.
The funny thing is few people knew Alison was the Wine Wizard. Like the
identity of most “superheroes,” we decided it would be fun to keep her “true”
identity as the Wine Wizard a secret. So for eight years, Alison shared her
wisdom anonymously with readers on top of her daily duties as a professional
winemaker in California. Not even her coworkers and friends in the wine
industry knew of her secret double life as winemaker by day and wizard by
night. Well, now the secret is out and Alison’s best work has been collected here
in this book for you.
Eight years’ worth of the best questions from small-scale winemakers are in
Eight years’ worth of the best questions from small-scale winemakers are in
the following pages. These are real questions from real winemakers like you;
learn from their mistakes. Alison’s answers will expand your understanding of
wine and winemaking no matter if you are a first-time winemaker or a
knowledgeable veteran with many harvests under your belt.
So enjoy as the “Master of Must,” the “Sultan of Siphon,” the “Great One of
Grapes,” the one and only Wine Wizard answers common — and some not-so-
common — winemaking questions. You will definitely learn more about making
super wine from this “superhero.”
—Brad Ring, Publisher, WineMaker magazine
INTRODUCTION
Winemaking is equally a science and an art. That is really why I ventured, as a
17-year-old college freshman, into the world of winemaking. I wanted to devote
my life to a field that would keep me firmly rooted in the sciences — chemistry,
biology, agriculture — and yet allow me to channel my love of the arts. Pursuing
a winemaking career, starting with a degree from the University of California-
Davis Department of Viticulture & Enology while working summers at wineries
around California, seemed like the perfect choice.
I already had a few harvests under my belt when an e-mail came through the
department asking for contributors to a new magazine called WineMaker.
Because appending my personal e-mail address to my inaugural Q&A column
flooded my in-box with questions from knowledge-hungry readers, we decided
to go “underground,” routing all questions through the magazine’s office and
making the mysterious and anonymous Wine Wizard the star of the show.
At nights and on weekends, trying to avoid the busy harvest season by
prewriting a column or two, I’ve had fun being the Wine Wizard (amusingly,
many readers assumed the Wizard was a gentleman of a certain age), helping
everyday people make better wine and dispensing homeopathic doses of
winemaking — and wine enjoyment — philosophy along the way. As better
material and equipment have become available (largely thanks to the Internet),
I’ve gently encouraged readers to evolve as well, to apply the same cutting-edge
professional techniques to their few barrels that I was employing in my “day
job” as a winemaker in California’s Central Coast, in Argentina, and now in the
Napa Valley.
General interest in wine has never been higher and winemaking remains one
of the fastest-growing pursuits in North America. People are more wine-savvy
than ever, especially my loyal readers at WineMaker magazine. Largely distant
from the commercial wine world of glossy magazines, luxury resorts, and
touristy tasting rooms, it is the small-scale and hobbyist producer that represents
to me the true creative, curious soul of winemaking. Throughout my own
seasons in the wine business, the Wine Wizard columns have remained a
welcome chance to give back and, perhaps, to look back; being a bimonthly
“consulting winemaker” to readers in garages, basements, and start-up cellars
across the country reconnects me to my own first harvests and the wonder and
excitement I felt as I began learning about this complex and beautiful thing we