Winemaking Success Stories from Vintage 2025

While everyone else is talking about what’s broken in the wine industry, I’m going to show you what’s working.

The 2025 vintage brought immediate breakthroughs for DGW Clients who made small strategic shifts. With some winemakers we solved problems they’d been fighting for years, and for others we saved entire crops by making quick-thinking decisions. 

These aren’t feel-good stories. They’re blueprints. Real challenges, practical solutions, and results you can replicate in your own winery. 

What you’re about to read isn’t theory. It’s what actually worked. 

Cracking the Code on Stubborn Malolactic Fermentations (MLF)

DGW Clients in North Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey, and Nebraska were fighting the same frustrating battle in some wines: malolactic fermentations (MLF) that wouldn’t start, wouldn’t finish, or both. And it wasn’t just the usual red wines or white wine suspect, Chardonnay. Some red wines proved tricky to complete when co-inoculated, and white hybrid varieties like Chardonel, Vidal Blanc, and La Crescent were increasingly showing MLF resistance, even after proper inoculation.

For these wineries, stuck MLFs meant compromised wine quality, potentially detrimental aroma and flavor profiles, delayed releases, and the constant risk of spoilage. The 2025 vintage demanded a different approach.

The Strategic Shifts

Rather than treating each stuck fermentation as an isolated incident, DGW identified the common threads across Clients and built a systematic solution:

1. Upgraded to Known, Hardy MLF Strains
We moved clients away from any MLF strain they preferred to more robust option known to handle difficult wine conditions. The difference was immediate, especially when used in conjunction with a malolactic nutrient.

2. Measured Starting Malic Acid Concentrations
Many assumed their malic levels were reasonable… until we tested the wines. Several wines came back above 3.0 g/L, a threshold where MLF becomes significantly more challenging. Knowing this upfront allowed us to adjust our approach before problems started.

3. Introduced Quality Malolactic Nutrients
This was a big change from DGW operating procedures, but as MLFs were becoming more and more difficult to complete, I concluded the lack of nutrients could be a missing piece for many operations. Malolactic bacteria need fuel just like yeast, and given the history of difficulty, this was an easy thing to change. 

4. Tightened Environmental Controls
I have talked about how tricky MLF can be to complete in the past, and so I started evaluating environmental controls with each Client. We eliminated temperature fluctuations during MLF and minimized oxygen exposure. These are two factors that can silently sabotage even well-inoculated fermentations. Small environmental improvements created positive results in getting MLF to start and eventually complete.

5. Implemented Post-Primary MLF Verification
For Clients using co-inoculation protocols with ML Prime (in red wines), a new product for the 2025 vintage, we added a critical checkpoint: testing malic acid concentrations immediately after primary fermentation. This caught several incomplete MLFs that otherwise would have gone undetected until bottling, or worse, in the bottle.

The Results

100% MLF completion across all white hybrid varieties without a single wine lost to spoilage. While some of these ferments still remained challenging, wines maintained their fresh, clean profiles while achieving the desired textural benefits of completed malolactic fermentation.

For Clients using ML Prime co-inoculation in reds, most achieved complete MLF by the end of primary fermentation. In cases where extreme temperature fluctuations disrupted the process, our verification protocol caught the issue immediately, allowing successful re-inoculation with Oenococcus strains before the wine quality was compromised.

The Takeaway

Stuck MLFs aren’t inevitable, but they are diagnostic. Each failure point reveals a gap in process, monitoring, or environmental control. By treating MLF as a system rather than a single inoculation decision, these wineries transformed a chronic problem into a solved one.

The question for your operation: Are you checking malic acid after primary fermentation? If not, you might be bottling incomplete MLFs without knowing it.

The ”Wine Press” That Wasn’t: A Problem Hidden in Plain Sight

A relatively new DGW Client kept mentioning how difficult their press operations were for them. Pressing took longer than it should. The process felt messy, difficult, and inefficient. Something was consistently off, but they couldn’t pinpoint why.

I took their concerns seriously, but honestly? I assumed they were dealing with typical learning curve issues of technique, timing, and maybe grape varietals or fruits that were naturally challenging to press.

Then I visited their cellar during a Client Visit one afternoon…

The Discovery

When I spotted their press, something didn’t look right. I asked if that was what they used for all their wines.

“Yes,” they confirmed. “We were told this would work when we started out.”

Here’s the thing: it wasn’t actually a wine press.

They’d been advised years ago to use this particular piece of equipment, and because it came from someone they trusted, they never questioned it. They never thought to verify it was industry standard. They just assumed everyone struggled this much with pressing.

The Solution

I pulled up examples of actual wine presses on the spot—basket presses, bladder presses, the equipment designed specifically for winemaking. The difference was immediately obvious.

Luckily, they were able to invest in a proper wine press.

The Strategic Shift

Pressing operations transformed immediately after purchasing a new press. What used to be a multi-hour ordeal requiring constant attention became a smoother and more predictable process. Operational order and efficiency improved dramatically. The physical strain on their team disappeared.

But the best part? The laughter. They finally understood why they had spent years thinking, “This can’t be right,” and now they knew it wasn’t.

The Take Away

This story isn’t really about a press. It’s about the cost of unasked questions. (And also, a small reminder that laughter is a wonderful part of life!)

How many wineries are silently struggling with processes, equipment, or protocols that “just don’t feel right,” but they never speak up because they assume everyone deals with the same challenges?

The questions that feel silly to ask are often the ones that unlock the biggest breakthroughs. Every expert was once a beginner who asked “stupid” questions. The difference is, they asked the questions and found answers. And you can, too!

What feels harder than it should in your operation? That’s not normal. It is actually a signal. The sooner you investigate it, the sooner you stop wasting time, money, and energy on problems that have already been solved.

Trust your instincts. Ask the question. Get expert feedback. Because sometimes the issue isn’t your technique, it’s that you’re using the wrong tool entirely or going about an operation in a way that is putting way too much strain on you and your team.

The Science Behind Formula Wines that Actually Work

Formula wines (i.e., spiced/mulled wines, wine-based pre-bottled cocktails, mixed fruit wines, etc.) represent a growing segment in the alcohol industry. Consumers want them. Tasting rooms can turn them around quickly with clever marketing and focused quality. They’re social media-ready, gift-worthy, and offer the opportunity for quicker profits than traditional wines.

So why aren’t more wineries making them successfully? As in, why aren’t more wineries making these wines competitively by making them taste good and lasting in the bottle?

I think it is because formula wine development is nothing like traditional winemaking. It requires a completely different skill set separated from traditional winemaking. Formula wine development is rooted in flavor science, product development techniques common amongst food scientists, shelf-stability assessments, and sensory precision.

The Hidden Challenges

Most wineries approach formula wine development the way they approach making a cocktail in their kitchen: trust your palate, use known ingredients, and then take the recipe straight to the wine tank. But that process falls apart fast when you’re dealing with:

• Shelf-stability requirements that traditional winemaking doesn’t address.
• Ingredient interactions that change dramatically based on the matrix and over time in bottle.
• Flavor degradation that loses association with the product itself.
• Sourcing timelines for specialty ingredients that can derail launch schedules.
• Packaging decisions that can turn a perfect product into a disappointment within 6-months or less.
• Scaling challenges that result in short-cut production operations that ultimately degrade product quality. 

The biggest misconception? A shelf-stable formula wine shouldn’t taste like a freshly made cocktail, and if you’re designing it to match that fresh standard, you’re setting yourself up for failure once the product is mixed and bottled.

Without flavor science expertise, wineries typically spend 2-3 years iterating on formula products, often launching products that taste great initially but deteriorate within weeks or months. Some never make a splash in the marketplace because they don’t even look appealing.

The DGW Formula Wine Process

My background in flavor science allows me to compress this development cycle dramatically for wineries. Here’s how we approach it:

1. Ingredient Strategy
Identifying suppliers and ingredients that deliver the desired flavor profile and maintain quality for a minimum of a year in bottle. Not all flavor compounds behave the same way over time.

2. Dosage Precision
Calculating exact concentrations required to achieve the target flavor, and then adjusting for how those flavors will evolve. This isn’t guesswork; it’s chemistry. Plus, we streamline the process to cut down benchwork from 30+ samples to about 10 samples for a given product.

3. Matrix Formulation
DGW helps to adjust formulas that reduce the number of trials a winemaker will need to make before finding a product they feel good about.

4. Supply Chain Management
Advising on ordering timelines and minimum quantities, because specialty ingredients often have 8-12 week lead times that standard enological suppliers don’t require.

5. Final Sensory Approval
Pre-bottling evaluation to ensure the product will deliver the intended experience.

The 2025 Results

Several DGW Clients across multiple states launched new formula wine products in 2025, including:

• Spiced (mulled) wines with complex, layered flavors.
• Fortified products with precise alcohol integration and added flavor enhancements.
• Fruit-and-wine blends with vibrant, stable fruit character.
• Proprietary formulaic wines unique to their brands.

Every single product was developed in a single vintage cycle. No years of trial and error. No reformulations after customer complaints about off-flavors. No expensive ingredient waste from failed batches.

The Competitive Advantage

Formula wines are a growth opportunity disguised as a technical challenge.

The wineries capitalizing on this segment aren’t always the ones with the most creative ideas. Although, to their credit, some wineries have very creative ideas and I love seeing those products launch. However, many of these wineries are the ones with the technical expertise to execute their ideas at commercial scale with consistent quality.

If you’ve been sitting on a formula wine concept but haven’t moved forward because you’re unsure how to make it shelf-stable, cost-effective, and commercially viable, you’re not alone. Most winemakers don’t have the proper scientific training that leads to successful product development.

But you don’t need to develop that expertise yourself. You just need access to someone who already has it, and that is where DGW can help!

Real-Life Winemaking: When Life Doesn’t Stop for Harvest

This is simply a reality that many wine consultants won’t acknowledge: not every winemaker is a full-time winemaker. 

In fact, many DGW Clients and Members are not full-time winemakers. They work across a multitude of industries, and many of them are also parents. They are people with demanding careers and obligations that don’t pause just because grapes are ready.

Traditional winemaking advice assumes you can drop everything when the grapes or wine demand attention. Punch downs at midnight and 6 AM? Rearrange your schedule. Unexpected ripeness spike? Cancel your meetings and get out to harvest. Grapes arrived a day early? Too bad: the wine comes first and it is time to process. All in the name of quality, right?

But it’s just not realistic in today’s world with the modern winery operation. And pretending it is doesn’t help anyone make better wine.

The Hidden Cost of “Perfect” Winemaking

Here’s what actually happens when winemakers try to follow textbook protocols without accommodating real-world constraints:

• Fruit sits at room temperature for days because they can’t process it immediately and someone told them that 60°F+ temperatures are okay for grape storage.
• Crushed grapes macerate unattended at 60°F+, creating ideal conditions for spoilage.
• Punch downs get skipped entirely because the timing doesn’t work out for the cellar employees.
• Wines sit without getting racked or sulfited because “there’s just too much to do.”
• Chemistry assessments get forgotten because no one is really checking on what needs done.

The irony? Trying to follow “perfect” winemaking advice often produces worse wine than strategic, intentional compromises would have created.

The Strategic Shift: Learning When to Pause 

My job isn’t to pretend my Clients have unlimited time. It’s to identify where they can pause without compromising quality and where they absolutely cannot. 

During the harvest season, we make smart pauses that protect quality:

• Holding grapes in cold storage (40-50°F) when processing must wait a day or 4. (I promise you this is better for the wine’s quality than losing grapes to a storm or allowing them to sit at room temperature.)
• Delaying harvest 24-48 hours to align with processing availability.
• Early pressing for reds when punch downs/pump overs can’t be performed on schedule.
• Identifying shorter clarification times when it is needed for white/rosé juices. 
• Learning when to assess juice/must chemistries ahead of time to save time on “day-of” processes.

Dangerous shortcuts we avoid during the harvest season:

• Guess work!
• Letting fruit sit at room temperature for extended periods.
• Letting juice sit clarified, unchilled for days waiting for racking and inoculation.
• Inoculating juice and then walking away for days without monitoring fermentation.
• Over punching down reds because it felt like the right thing to do. 
• Forgetting about malolactic fermentation. 
• Not monitoring fermentation or malolactic fermentation as the wine spoils.

The difference between these approaches? The first approach is planted in proper planning and strategy. 

Is this textbook-perfect winemaking? No.

Does it produce high-quality wine while respecting that Clients have full lives outside the cellar? Absolutely. We work around known obligations, the unexpected responsibilities, and illnesses. Life is more than making wine and we all need support somewhere. 

Why This Matters

You don’t need to choose between making good wine and having a life outside the winery.

The consultants who insist you must be available 24/7 during harvest aren’t more dedicated to quality, they’re just less creative about problem-solving. Strategic flexibility isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about understanding which corners matter and which don’t.

Every winemaking operation has constraints. Time. Labor. Equipment. Budget. The question isn’t whether you’ll face logistical challenges, it’s whether you’ll navigate them intelligently or let them force you into quality-compromising decisions.

The Results

In 2025, DGW Clients across multiple states successfully navigated harvest while maintaining their primary careers, family obligations, and personal lives. Maybe everything did not go as planned, but the wines are commercially viable and they are diligently working to meet their other responsibilities, attempting to balance both as best they can.

Real-life winemaking is about creating a timeline that works for your reality while protecting what actually matters for wine quality.

What logistical challenges are forcing you into decisions you’re not confident about? There’s almost always a smarter pause point than the one you’re taking by default. DGW is here to help guide you through it. 

Every vintage brings its challenges—the late nights, the unexpected fermentation issues, the pressure to deliver excellence. But here’s what keeps me coming back: watching wineries transform.

A small adjustment to your crush protocol. A shift in how your team communicates and operates during harvest. A plan for post-fermentation operations. These aren’t just minor changes, they’re the turning points that elevate everything. I’ve seen these “small” steps cascade into wines that surprise even the most seasoned winemakers. These breakthroughs are not always dramatic, but they are strategic. 

Your operation has untapped potential. The question is: are you ready to unlock it? The wineries seeing real results? They didn’t wait for the perfect moment. They decided to invest in change—now.

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The views and opinions expressed through dgwinemaking.com are intended for general informational purposes only. Denise Gardner Winemaking does not assume any responsibility or liability for those winery, cidery, or alcohol-producing operations that choose to use any of the information seen here or within dgwinemaking.com.