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The characteristics you describe really are not direct indicators of different fermentation rates. The description you give of the Mosti surface (fizzing like a coke in a glass) is typical of a kit fermentation. When you are doing a grape pack kit, there is less surface area of liquid exposed...

I forget the how long ago this was proposed, but it has been several years. I believe it was a graduate student at Davis who discovered this. I have tried it, and it does indeed work. For a badly corked wine, you might have to do it twice.

Can you be a little more descriptive than BAD? Different problems usually result in different off flavors.

Congrats, George! You are the best.

I would not be concerned at all about it being safe to drink. I would taste it to see if the mold added any off flavors, but I doubt it. I would also inspect the bottles to see if there were any pieces of mold that came loose while bottling that you didn't see. If so, I would uncork thise and do...

Does anyone have any experience with this pump? I am looking for an economical diaphragm pump that won't beat up the wine as much as the impeller pump we have been using.

Good link...so much for my speculation. That is a lot fewer judges than I thought. I had assumed 3 judges/panel and 5 wines/flight from looking at the pics in the program. For comparison, the California State Fair last year had 40 judges for 800 entries. In reviewing the Winemaker...

COL Bill, George, and myself had a long conversation about this whole judging topic over dinner last night. I think that it is next impossible to avoid some subjectivity in wine judging, and I would expect the magnitude of the WM Mag competition to compound that. Looking at the numbers in...

Like Appleman, I entered 8 wines but only medaled with 5. I am very pleased given that this was my first competition. I also had the pleasure of spending the day with George, his wife, and friends yesterday. After touringand tasting the Russian River and DryCreek Valleys we sampled my Gold Medal...

The link for the 2009 winners is now up. http://www.winemakermag.com/images/stories/2009results.pdf

If the lees have not completely settled, perhaps they are just fissures in the lees bed that look dark because they are full of wine. If that is the case they will disappear as the lees settle over a few days.

Whino, I have looked at your pictures and yes, the cork is the problem. The wine did not get "sucked through the cork", it seeped around the side of the cork. The same thing was happening to the bottle that was not spoiled, it was just happening at a slower rate. A poor quality...

I've not made the VR Riesling, but I have made the Piesporter and it is excellent. No need to age for a year, but it is enjoyable shortly after bottling but definitely better after 3 months. I had no need to filter. Just clarifiers and gravity and it was brilliantly clear.

They all did clarify quite nicely. Degassed with a vacuum pump, added clarifying agents, and just left them alone. The advantage of letting them sit a long time is that the sediment compacts nicely and you can rack almost all the wine perfectly clear. We got 30 bottles out of all three carboys...

About six months ago I first learned about modern wine kits while exploring this and another forum. I was intrigued by the concept of being able to make a variety of wines for everyday drinking for a few dollars a bottle. I had never made any whites, and thought they might also be a great...

The WE Selection Viognier is one of the first kits I made. I bottled it last week after 3 months of rest in the carboy. It is excellent and I doubt that it will make it past this summer.

I have made the Amarone, but not the Super Tuscan (yet!). I think my Amarone stared around 1.087, but that was before the grape pack addition. The grape pack adds a lot of sugar. The Amarone is quite alcoholic when done.

I have made the CC Showcase Amarone kit that has the same size grapepack. The bag is very stretchy, and easily holds all the grape pack contents. I soaked the grape pack in warm water to reduce the viscosity a bit, cut off one end of the pack, stretched the sock over it, then squeezed the...

My first red kit is an MM AllJuice Castel del Papa that I started on 12/21 and is now bulk aging after the second racking. As a big fan of southern Rhone style wines, I will say thay that I would not add anything to this kit. based on the couple of ounces I tasted when I racked out of secondary...

I racked my AJ Castel del Papa out of secondary on 1/10 and had a taste. I think you will be pleased. I am going to let mine rest until the end of Feb and then decide whether to add a wee bit more oak.