In an earlier post, we introduced a few home winemaking terms that you may or may not be familiar with.  There are many terms to learn in home winemaking, and this post, like the previous post, will give you a brief introduction into just a few of those terms to help you get started in home winemaking, or perhaps brush up on some of the terms you may not have seen in a while.

• Piquant: This term is French in origin, and can be used to describe different aspects of the home winemaking process.  First, piquant is a term used to describe the tactile sensation noticed when the wine hits your mouth.  Also, piquant can be used to describe a wine that has a slight chance of turning to vinegar.  Finally, is can also be used to describe a wine that is about to undergo a secondary fermentation.
• Punch Down: In red winemaking, the skins and seeds of the grapes are left in contact with the juice for a period of time.  What happens is that these solid pieces stick together and form a “cap”, which floats to the top of the juice.  If left alone, this cap will completely cut off the fermenting wine from oxygen, resulting in significant reductive characteristics, and other negative consequences related to poor or failed fermentation.  The act of pushing and stirring (i.e. punching down) this cap will allow the solids to contribute even more complex flavors and aromas into the wine, which would not happen had the cap not been punched down.
• Still Wine:  This one is easy to remember if you think in terms of water.  What’s the difference between still and sparkling water?  Bubbles!  What’s the difference between still and sparkling wine?  Bubbles!  A still wine is the finished wine that does not contain bubbles.
• Fixed Acids:  Fixed acids describe any acid compound that is found naturally in the grapes or wine, acid that is added to the fermenting wine, or those acids that are created during the fermentation process.  Specifically, fixed acids are stable compounds that are not intermediates to another compound.  In other words, these are “stable” or “fixed” acids that aren’t in the middle of turning into something else.
• Hydrolysis: This term describes the chemical reaction of decomposition between some compound(s) and water.  “Hydro” means “water”, and “lysis” means “to break down”: putting the two together, you have the breakdown by water.  One example of hydrolysis in home winemaking is the catalytic conversion from starch to glucose.  In wine, hydrolysis is a process that is catalyzed by certain enzymes that can either be added into the must, or enzymes that are created by the yeasts themselves.
  ———————————————————————————————————
  Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

If you’re new to home winemaking, some of the language used in the wine making books and wine recipes can be very intimidating.  But after you’ve done some research and have been practicing for a little while, you’ll wonder why you were ever confused to begin with!
There are many terms to learn in home winemaking, and this post will give you a brief introduction into just a few of those terms to help you get started in home winemaking, or perhaps brush up on some of the terms you may not have seen in a while.

• Acidity:  You can measure acidity in grapes, must, or wine, and is an important thing to measure throughout the home winemaking process.  If you don’t have enough acid in the must, you’ll have a hard time with fermentation, and the finished wine will have a sort of medicinal flavor.  You can use an acid testing kit to determine the acidity level in the must or wine, and if it looks like these levels are too low, you can add tartaric acid, malic acid, or citrus acid in order to achieve the proper acidity level for good fermentation and desirable aromas and flavors.
• Bentonite:  Bentonite is a fine clay substance that is used either as a clarifying or stabilizing agent in wine. Basically, it functions to remove excess proteins in the wine, including yeast, as well as removing other fining agents or helping to achieve heat stabilization.
• Stabilization: A wine is considered to be stable or have been stabilized when the fermentation is complete.  Stabilization can occur naturally, or through additives like Wine Stabilizer.
• Inoculation: To inoculate a wine is just a fancy way of describing the act of adding active wine yeast to the must or wine.  Additionally, you can inoculate a wine with malolactic bacteria if you’re planning on having your wine go through malolactic fermentation.
• Lees: Lees are basically dead wine yeast plus other solids that are formed during the winemaking process.  In order to remove this sediment from the wine, you can perform as few or as many rounds of racking as needed.  For some wines, leaving the lees in contact with the juice for a period of time may be desirable, as this contact incorporates more complex flavors and aromas into the wine than if they were immediately removed and discarded.
• Oxidation: In very basic terms, oxidation occurs as a reaction between wine and the oxygen in the air.  You want some oxidation in your wine in order to help in the development and maturation process, however, too much oxygen exposure can result in a wine that is known as being “oxidized”, which possesses undesirable flavors and aromas, as well as a browning in color.
  ———————————————————————————————————
  Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Commercial wineries spend thousands of dollars or more in order to produce high quality wines.  If it costs that much for commercial wineries to produce a stellar wine, is there any hope for the home winemaker?  Can the home winemaker produce a similar high quality wine?  The answer is yes!  Of course!  Making great wine isn’t just for those that can afford to produce thousands of cases of wine.  With the right technique, you can produce some stellar wines that could rival the “big boys”!
What are some ways that the home winemaker can do to produce a wine that rivals in quality to the big commercial wineries?  There are many things you can do, however, today we will focus on the crushing stage.
Commercial wineries often use very large and expensive pieces of equipment to crush their grapes.  Technology has come a long way and there are a lot of crushers out there that delicately crush the grapes and allow commercial wineries to process large amounts of grapes in a relatively short period of time.  You can sometimes rent this equipment, so if you have a custom-crush winery or another winery that rents out their equipment, you might want to check with them about costs.
The key to crushing grapes is to be gentle!  It doesn’t actually matter what type of equipment you end up using, as long as you are gentle and approach the crushing process in a very delicate manner.  Commercial wineries have their equipment set up so that it is gentle enough to remove a certain amount of juice without extracting all the more harsh flavors and aromas by crushing the seeds and stems.  A gentle pressing to extract the free flow juice from the grapes will put you on the right track toward making a high-quality wine that is just as delicious as the commercial wines you see at the wine shop.
If you don’t have access to any fancy crushers, what can you do?  Well, being a home winemaker, you’re probably better apt to gently crush the grapes than a commercial winery using large mechanized equipment, so don’t give up just yet!  You can purchase small-scale crushers and destemmers.
Make sure you thoroughly wash and sterilize the equipment so you don’t introduce any contaminants into your grapes that could ruin your wine.  Just be gentle with your crush and you’ll be off on a great start toward making a high quality wine!
———————————————————————————————————
Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

We have been purchasing a peach flavored wine. Is there a way to take a white wine and add a peach flavoring to it to replicate a peach wine?Name: Mack T.
State: TN

1. Don’t go overboard. One bottle to 5 or 6 gallons of wine is plenty. These little bottles have a lot of flavor packed in them. You can experiment with using a second bottle, but be very cautious. I would never add more than two bottles. The result can be a wine with a lightly bitter finish.
2. Give the wine some time. Once you have added a bottle, let the wine sit for a day or more before tasting it. These flavorings seem to take time to mingle with wine. With a little time given, you will notice more fruity aroma and cleaner finish. 
3. Get sweet with your wine. When adding an actual fruit flavor, such as the case with your peach, you will usually need to sweeten up the wine slightly to get the effect you want. Extremely dry wines are not capable of giving strong fruity impressions. Take the dry edge off with some sweetening, and you should experience the fruitiness start to open up. If you are dealing with a 5 or 6 gallons batch, maybe start by adding one or two cups of a sugar syrup mixture and go from there.
4. Work with a sample. If you are just not sure about how much flavoring or sweetening to add, you may experiment on a gallon of the wine first. Add measured amounts to the gallon to establish a dosage for the rest of the batch. If you do take the gallon sample too far, you can add it to the rest of the batch and start all over. If you really messed it up, you can dump it and start all over.

• The sugar syrup mixture can be made by adding 2 parts sugar and 1 part water in a sauce pan and gently heating until it becomes clear. Allow to cool before adding to the wine.
• Remember: always add potassium sorbate when sweetening a wine to eliminate the chance of a re-fermentation.