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When I make wine and have a full carboy out in the open I always wrap it in an old towel (in this case, an old “Les Miserables” beach towel we weren’t using anymore).

The main reason I do it is so that the natural light coming in from the window doesn’t interfere with the wine.  If you don’t do this you could fall prey to the following:

1. The colour of your wine could fade
2. The heat from the light could cause temperatures of your wine must to go up and down throughout the day.
3. The UV light could damage your wine

I’m sure you’ve heard that you should store your wine in a cool dark room and not use clear bottles for your wine and this is why.

I was reading the December 2008 - January 2009 edition of WineMaker Magazine and saw a great idea, which I wanted to pass along. It basically takes my idea and gives a bit of a nudge.

Instead of using an old towel Scott Freedman from http://homemadewine.wordpress.com/ suggested using an old t-shirt instead.

It sounded like a great a idea so I gave it a try this evening and it works perfectly!

Think about it, the hole for the head fits nicely over the neck of the carboy (we wrapped it around the neck) and a large shirt is long enough/wide enough to fit around a 23-litre carboy.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy’

I was asked the other day how I clean my wine making equipment so I thought this would be a good topic for my “question of the week” as I’m sure there are others curious as well. So here’s what I do to keep the germs off my winemaking gear:

I call it the “Double Whammy”!

Step 1 - Pink Solution (Sani Brew)

It’s comes as chlorinated pink powder that you dissolve 3.5 g per litre of cold water (5 tsp. per gal). Soak stained equipment up to 48 hours. Rinse thoroughly with hot water. Because it’s a chlorine product you want to be careful with stainless steel equipment and you’ll also want to make sure you rinse really well. I like soaking my wine and beer bottles in it for several days to clean all the “gunge” out of them, especially if they’re used. It’s also great for removing stains from your equipment (especially your primary).

Step 2 - MetaBisulphite spray down.

This is a good sanitizer as well but doesn’t clean like in step one hence why I do both.  I use a spray bottle like the one below as it really helps get you good coverage.  The nice thing about the MetaBisulphite solution is that it is reusable for up to a month.  Note that it has a strong sulphur smell so use it in a well ventilated area so you don’t irritate your lungs.  I typically rinse my equipment after using it but some people just let their equipment drip dry as it won’t be a bad thing if it gets into your wine as it will help prevent oxidization.

Anyhoo, that’s basically what I do to clean my equipment.

Oh … one thing you might want to do is go to your hardware store and invest in a short garden hose that you can attach to a tap as this’ll help you clean your primary and secondary.  I was able to pick one up that was about 6 feet long with one end open and the other with the tap connector. I’ve used it for years and it makes things really easy. Make sure that you clean this out first (i.e. in step 1) so that you clean out any bugs that might be lurking in it as well.

If you’re interested in some more details on how to clean your equipment here are two good resources for you:

• http://www.clickabrew.com/cn-0903.html (scroll down the page and look for “Cleaning & Sanitising your Winemaking Equipment”
• http://www.eckraus.com/Cleaners_-and-_Sanitizers.html (an online store where you can buy some of the sanitizers)
• http://www.grapestompers.com/sanitation.asp (lot’s of great detail here)

If you have any interesting cleaning methods please share below!

- Scott

A wine bottle is a bottle which is used to hold wine like Rose Wines, and which is generally made out of glass. Some wine bottles are also used during the wine fermentation process as advised in the Wine Making Recipes, although for the most part the wine is only put into a wine bottle after the entire wine making process is complete.

Wine bottles are available in a large variety of sizes and styles, and they are typically sealed with a cork, although screw-top caps have become especially popular recently. When you purchase wine from a store you will just get it in whatever wine bottle it is offered to you in, however if you bottle your own wine, then you are able to choose whatever sort of bottle you like.

Bottling Your own Wine

As long as your wine as been fermented and racked, meaning that it is cleared of sediment, then you are able to put it into a wine bottle and store it. The first step is to choose the actual wine bottle that you are going to use, and then if is new and unused, you just need to rinse it with hot water and dry it.

You want to prepare the corks by soaking them in water for a couple of hours, and then rinsing them off with cool water and letting them stand to dry. You then want to place the bottles below the wine container, insert the notched end of the siphon tube into the container of wine, making sure that the tube is not touching the bottom of the container.

Then you need to suck on the other end of the tube until the wine begins to flow through it, and then insert the tube into the wine bottle. You want to fill the bottle up until it is about

With so much conflicting information, it’s hard to know what you should or shouldn’t be eating and drinking to stay healthy. While there is no firm medical proof, most studies point to health benefits from drinking red wine.

What Can Red Wine Do?

While red wine and Fruit Wine isn’t considered a cure all (and certainly not a substitute for visiting your doctor), there are some widely agreed upon benefits to drinking red wine. The most promising benefit is that red wine is believed to protect against certain forms of cancer & heart disease. In fact, some studies show up to a 30%-50% reduction in heart disease of those who consumed a glass of red wine each night. It also appears to have a positive effect on cholesterol & blood pressure. And finally, drinking red wine has been shown to lower the risk of heart attacks in middle-aged (30-50 years old) adults.

Why Red Wine?

Experts started to study the benefits of red wine and Liqueurs when they started to notice a correlation between populations who drank red wine regularly and lower incidences of disease. This was especially evident in the Mediterranean region, where red wine is plentiful. They also studied the so-called “French Paradox,” where the French have a lower rate of heart disease and obesity even though they consume a higher-fat diet. Most of the benefits of red wine come from the antioxidants present in it. Studies show that red wine has a high concentration of antioxidants, which are known to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. The antioxidants have been found to increase HDL cholesterol (the good kind of cholesterol) and help prevent blood clots and plaque from forming on arteries.

How Much Should I Drink to See the Health Benefits of Red Wine?

Most experts believe that it takes very little to see the health benefits of red wine and Homemade Wine Recipes. Moderation is truly the key – one glass of wine per day for women and one or two glasses for men. Keep in mind, as well, that a glass of wine is considered to be four ounces. This isn’t to say that you should be drinking a bottle of red wine each night. In fact, most experts believe that the health benefits of red wine are lost if wine is consumed to excess. There is also the concern that those who have a family history of alcoholism or other pre-existing health conditions should not be drinking red wine. In these cases, the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

What are the Most Common Types of Wine Storage Solutions?

Wine storage and making wine is one of the most incredibly important parts in the entire overall wine process, and the most commonly used types of wine storage solutions are: wine cabinets, cooling units, wine racks, and custom designed wine cellars. A wine cabinet is one of the most particularly common wine storage solutions, and the choosing of a wine cabinet is of the utmost importance, as it is absolutely essential to know how to properly determine the optimal wine cabinet device.

If you are in search of a wine storage solution such as a wine cabinet, one optimum choice is that by Dometic, whose features include: no vibrations and no noise thanks to the proper absorption process, constant temperature throughout the year thanks to temperature regulation, constantly humidity of between 50 and 70 percent, anti UV protected glass, and constant ventilation as well.

As for wine and liqueurs cooling units, these are wine storage devices which are designed specifically to provide the most optimal conditions for the storage and aging of your wines, and these cellars provide an optimal, dark, quiet, and vibration-free environment with proper humidity levels that are required for the proper storing of any type of wine.

Breezaire is a popular company that offers wine cooling units, as they have the full range of wine cellar cooling units in order to meet the customers’ needs. As well, they offer both that of self-contained wine cellaring units and split wine cooling systems, which overcome almost any possible construction challenge. You can also request that Breezaire specifically design your wine cooling unit, so that it will fit your designated room perfectly and properly.

In regards to wine racks, these too are forms of storage for wine, and there are again many different styles and sizes to choose from. Then there is also the option of custom designed wine cellars. These are an especially sought after choice, as many people have large and extensive collections of wine, and these wine cellars are custom made to your exact desired measurements.

Any true wine connoisseur understands the true and essential value of the proper storage solutions for wine and wine glass, as the better kept and preserved the wine is while being stored, quite obviously the better it will taste once it is opened. Some wines are even aged for up to a hundred years or more even, and so to waste all of that delicious ripening process due to using the wrong storage methods, would be pretty disappointing to anyone.

Click here to learn how to build your own wine cellar

If it’s fine wines and great food that you live for, then it’s all about Food and Wine Magazine. This magazine has dedicated itself to the individual who cannot eat his food without the taste of a good wine and making wine. Here you can find the best unknown restaurants across America. There are recipes galore and the latest in the newest grape. Food and Wine Magazine also has numerous auctions to benefit charities and group trips to benefit the select palate. If your hobby is wine or if your hobby is food, or if you genuinely enjoy both, than Food and Wine Magazine will become your periodical of choice.

Sponsor of Top Chef

One of the most popular reality shows on television for Wine Making Recipes is Top Chef. The show, with its cutthroat cooking competitions to find America’s next Top Chef, has become number one in the ratings and is being sponsored by Food and Wine Magazine. This reality show has brought culinary skills to the forefront of the public. For the past 25 years Food and Wine Magazine has held a Food and Wine Fest in Aspen, Colorado. Securing tickets to this festival is now becoming rare as many people keep their tickets within their families. The festival is one of the most popular food and wine events of the year. The newest chefs are highlighted at the festival, as well as America’s newest Top Chef.

Food and Wine Magazine now reviews the latest videos of the country’s most popular chefs preparing certain recipes and recommends the best of these videos for Wine Making Guide. The top ten recipes of the month are also reviewed, as well as the top ten wine picks of the month. Wineries are very often reviewed with their picks of the recipes which would most benefit from their wines. All current wine, cocktail and food fests are always listed in Food and Wine Magazine. Of course there are many highlights of the latest appliances and the future in kitchens. There are also many articles written on what you already have in your kitchen and how that valuable appliance or utensil has been used for over a century. Food and Wine Magazine relays the latest cooking techniques and short-cuts to cooking your favorite meals and all the latest in seasonal entertainment. If you want to understand why certain wine glasses are better than others for a particular wine, then Food and Wine Magazine has your answer. For the culinary minded or if you would like to become culinary minded, then Food and Wine Magazine is your answer.

Box wine is Fruit Wine that is packaged in a bag, which is typically made of aluminum, and which is protected by a box, which is usually made of standard corrugated cardboard. There are many advantages to box wine, such as the fact that it the packaging method itself is arguably superior to other methods.

Therefore not only is the box wine easier and safer to transport around, but as well it preserves the wine better and thus allows it to age to perfection, without any unnecessary oxygen being able to seep in and tamper with the flavor of the wine.

As well there is the fact that box wine is not subject to cork taint or spoilage, even after you have actually opened the wine. There is also a much greater efficiency of storage and in particular an elimination of the risk of breakage incurred by transporting wine in bottles.

Just as there are advantages to the box Citrus Wine however there are disadvantages as well, such as the fact that the bag used in this method is not hermetically sealed, and so because of this it has an unopened shelf life that is much shorter than most other types of wines. The box wines are also labeled by many wine connoisseurs as being ‘cheap’ wines, as they claim that the wine simply does not have the authentically aged taste and depth that other wines do.

Where to buy

If you are interested in purchasing box Fruit Wines, you can generally find at least a remote selection at any wine or liquor store near you, however if you have no luck here then you are going to want to locate a specialty wine store in your localized area. There are also various companies available online that you can order from, and because the box wines are easy to transport, you are really able to order wine from anywhere in the world.

The best idea is to have a selection of both box and bottle wines, so that you can have more of a variety, but you do have to remember that because box wines have a shorter life span they are going to need to be opened and drank before the others. As long as you do not drink these wines after the due date specified then you will be fine.

You also want to remember that your options are much more limited when it comes to the boxed wines, because they are fermented and stored differently than bottled wines and so there is not as much variety to choose from.

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”

Alright … so the cherries are clean and have been stoned/pitted therefore it is now time to press the fruit so that we can separate the juice from the pulp.

Now, I can tell you that for my first few batches of fruit wine I wanted to go a bit on the “cheap” so I used a potato masher to press the fruit. While this certainly works I can tell you that it really sucks doing it as you have to put a lot of muscle into it and you are left thinking that there must be a better way of doing this … and there is!

For our batch of cherry wine I decided to rent a ratchet grape/fruit press from one of our local wine making shops and it cost us $10 a day.

You might be able to find something similar on eBay or at a garage sale for under $100 but if you’re planning on buying a new press expect to spend over $250. Here’s a website I found that carries this model and several others www.homebrewit.com/aisle/1150.

Note that the press is a heavy bugger so we decided to press our grapes outside. This also made it easy for us to hose it down before and after we used it.

Here are the steps we followed to press our cherries:

Step 1 - Put the cherries in the press & place a clean bowl by the spout

Step 2 - Add the pressing blocks

Step 3 - Add the ratchet arm and press away until no more juice comes out

Step 4 - Transfer your juice to a clean stainless steel pot

Step 5 - Transfer cherry pulp to a straining bag (tie a knot at the top)

Step 6 - Bring your cherry juice to a boil but remove immediately from heat. This will help kill any bacteria or bugs that might be in the press.

Et voila! You now have the main ingredient for your cherry wine!

You will of course want to rinse your fruit press at this point and return it to your local wine supply store (if you rented it).

Fruit Pressing Tips:

1. Rent The Right Tools: Using a fruit press made this part of the process so much easier. If you are going to be a casual wine maker and have access to a grape/fruit press at your local wine supply store then rent it - don’t buy it (unless you have a hole burning in your pocket). The store we rented it from also wasn’t in a hurry to get it back so gave us a few extra days before we had to return it.
2. Have Help: I was happy to have my wife Michelle help me with this as there was a lot going on here, whether it be taking turns ratcheting the press, having someone ready to dump the juice if the bowl got too full to helping move the equipment around (note that the press was very heavy). She also seemed to be happy to get her hands in there and fill the straining bag with the cherry pulp.
3. Keeping Your Juice Clean: Your fruit press will undoubtedly be something that sits in the corner gathering dust between uses. This part of the process won’t exactly be clean so all you have to do is hose the press down before you use it knowing that your juice will most likely have some bugs in it. This is why we heated the juice to a boil then immediately took it off the heat. We didn’t want to burn the juice or reduce the amount of liquid in it - just enough heat to kill as much of bugs in it that should be in there. Adding a Camden tablet in our next step will also help kill any bacteria or bugs as well.

Up Next:

Stay tuned as next week we look at the recipe itself. Time to get fermenting and turning the juice into wine!

Enjoy and if you haven’t already please join in the discussion by becoming a member of our Cherry Wine Project community by going to http://thecherrywineproject.ning.com/

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

P.S. I recently met a fellow Canadian by the name of Dominic Rivard who has been in the wine industry for over 15 years. His main passion is fruit wine and is in fact a founding director of the Fruit Wines of Canada Association.

He has written an excellent fruit wine book called “The Ultimate Fruit Wine Guide” that you might consider having a look at.

He has also recently joined The Cherry Wine Project Community and I’m sure would love to hear from you!

To get things rolling here let’s use this post to talk about what we did to get the cleaned and ready for the fruit press!

If you’ve read “The Birth Of The Cherry Wine Project” then you already know that we purchased 20 lbs of beautiful and juicy red cherries in British Columbia - at Carl’s Fruit Stand to be exact (located on the highway between Kamloops and Valemont).

As you can imagine getting 20 lbs of cherries ready for wine making was going to take a bit of “elbow grease” because you have to remove the pit (aka the “stone”) from inside the cherry before you make your wine because:

1. They prevent you from being able to press all of the juice out of the cherries
2. If broken/cut they add a bitter taste to your wine

My wife Michelle and I therefore decided to invest $28 CAD in a “Cherry Stoner” from Carl’s Fruit Stand (last one they had - so I’m told - probably a trick to get us to buy it) so that we can quickly and easily remove the pit from the cherry.

I have to say, this was a great investment as we were able to get through the batch of cherries pretty quickly!

I should point out though that before we “stoned the cherries” Michelle cleaned them first.

She disinfected our kitchen sink, filled it with the cherries, ozonated water (we happen to have a little ozone generator I installed under our sink that we purchased from Cashidoo) and added Nature Clean All Natural Fruit and Veggie Wash (helps remove pesticides, bacteria and dirt).

You can never be sure what the fruit farmers used to grow their fruit or what is living on them despite how tasty they look!

She then made fast work of the cherries using our new Cherry Stoner. If you’ve never seen one here’s how it works:

1. Load your cherries into the little “cherry bin”
2. Press down on the plunger

   

3. “Stoned” cherry pops out

   

4. Repeat until you are left with these:

   

   

To be perfectly honest, it was a lot easier then I thought. It certainly helped that my wife Michelle chipped in and actually surprised me by doing most of the work on her day off while I was at work.

Fruit Cleaning Tips:

1. Garbage In/Garbage Out: Be sure to sort through your fruit and discard stems, bugs, dirt and spoiled fruit. If you wouldn’t put it in your mouth it probably shouldn’t be in your wine. Your wine will only be as good as what you put into it.
2. Tools of the trade: No matter what fruit you choose to make your wine with consider what tools you can use to make the job a whole lot easier to remove pits, seeds and anything else that shouldn’t be there.
3. Many hands make light work: Part of the lure of wine making is the social aspect so it doesn’t hurt to get someone to help you out. It also makes some of the more daunting and less fun tasks get done much more quickly plus you have someone to chat with!

Up Next:

Stay tuned as next week we look at how we pressed the cherries to “coax” the juice out of them …

Enjoy and if you haven’t already please join in the discussion by becoming a member of our Cherry Wine Project community by going to http://thecherrywineproject.ning.com/

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”