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 […]
Harvest
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 […]
Yeast Strain Selection vs. Yeast Nutrition
As a consulting winemaker, I have made the general observation that winemakers tend to take a lot of time in selecting yeast strains to ferment grapes. Many spend significant time deciding if the marketing terms related to wine descriptors they expect to arise by the end of primary fermentation are what they desire in their […]
Four Virtual Winemaking Lessons You’ll Want Before Harvest!
For many of us, harvest is at the edge of beginning. As I am a firm believer in preparing for a successful harvest, I want to review a few tools available through dgwinemaking.com as à la carte purchases. Details for purchasing these lessons is at the bottom of this post. Creative Wine Styles for Hybrid […]
COVID-19 Mitigation: Harvest Preparation
As COVID-19 continues to affect many regions across the U.S., winery operations may want to tackle planning for extra precautions to minimize the infection and spread of the virus within the production space. As we discussed previously, planning before infection becomes imminent is advantageous to employers. Harvest operations have the primary advantage of typically taking […]