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The home wine makers may want to blend wines in order to improve the taste of a particular wine. This is different than commercial wineries that blend wines in order to create consistency in the wines that they sell.

To be able to calculate how to properly blend wines, it is recommended that the home winemaker use the Pearson Square because it is a visual math tool that can help determine values when blending wines and it is a tool that anyone can use.

Pearson’s Square:

Let us look at an example of using this simple application. Let us say that you have two wines, and one has an acid level of 1.2 and the other is 0.5. Let us say further that you want the end acid result to be .8. The top left corner (A) and the bottom left corner (B) represent the acid level of the two wines you are trying to blend. The center number in the square (C) is the desired acid level. The two numbers on the right are numbers that you calculate. Square D (0.4) is the difference between square A (1.2) and square C (0.8); in addition, the square E (0.3) is the difference between square B (0.5) and square C (0.8).

You now have the numbers 0.4 and 0.3. This creates a 4 to 3 ratio of the wines. When you blend these two wines, you will use four parts of the first wine for every three parts of the second wine in order to get an acid level of 0.8. This simple calculation is already taking you down the road of creating the blended wine that you desire.

There are certain rules that should be followed when attempting to blend two wines:

• Blend two wines at a time in small quantities. Make sure you write down the results.
• Filter the wine after you blend.
• Spit don’t swallow when testing.
• Blend two similar wines of the same year.
• Wait a day before blending large quantities and retest your final formula.
• Test with the end product in mind. What is it you want to improve?
• Need some inspiration? Go to your local wine store and see what commercial wineries have blended.

If you follow these simple ways you should be able to make your own wine blend with fantastic results.

Interested In Learning More?

Here are some great resources I have found online that you should consider having a look at:

• Using Pearson’s Square (PDF) (from the North Texas Wine Makers Guild)
• Person’s Square Calculator (Excel Spreadsheet) (from the North Texas Wine Makers Guild)
• Tim Patterson’s Blending Spreadsheet (from WineMaker Magazine)

Scott “The Wine Making Guy”