Recent content by Winolady

This is my fourth year making wine from whole grapes. I've always done the MLF step because I read it makes a better wine. But is it really necessary? I'm not really fussy about my wine, and the extra step and expense of the yeast is bumming me out. This year I have 300 pounds of Noiret...

One more stupid question... it seems so obvious that I feel silly asking... but anyhooo, when you degas by the aging method, you have an airlock on the carboy to let the CO2 out the whole time, correct?? Would one year be enough?

Thanks! I just ordered a "wine whip". Soon as it gets here, I'll degas, and let the carboys sit til I need them, sometime in October.. Then this year's batch I'll degas after it ferments, and hopefully not have any issues like this. I like the idea of leaving airlocks on all the time...

haha! What I SHOULD do is start drinking it right off... the sample I just drew and shook is actually quite good the way it is.... :d

I'm going to have a time issue... I need the carboys in a month. : ( But so far my wine has been tasty, and the purple lips have become my "signature" with the family! : )

Oh, and I drew some wine off into a clear bottle and shook it....LOTS of bubbles.

Wow, interesting! I never degassed before, and never really noticed alot of bubbles in my bottled wine.... BUT, my wine is "thick", alot of sediment despite nearly a year of settling/aging. It leaves my lips purple!! Apparently because of all the CO2 keeping the sediment from settling...

Thanks for the replies! I'm a novice and find all the methods and recipes confusing and contradicting... When should I have degassed my wine? I just read somewhere that "time" will degas wine, but then you probably need an airlock the whole time? I've had an airlock on most of my carboys for...

Hi everyone! This is my third year making wine from grapes I bought from a vineyard. Mostly it's gone surprisingly well. But... I have 25 gallons of Concord wine, and 10 gallons of apple wine in 5-gallon carboys in my root cellar. I re-racked all of them a month ago, put 1/4 tsp meta in...

I went out and removed several vines that were totally infected, and severely pruned the rest... only the Frontenac had this. The St. Crois vines look beautiful.. As I pruned, it became more and more obvious that it has to be anthracnose... I could pick out the affected vines just by seeing...

Thanks for the replies! I looked this morning, but did see anything like a mite. But, after last night's rain, the spots and lesions on the vines were very much more pronounced, and I did some more researching.... I think I have anthracnose. The pictures and descriptions were very similar...

I have looked everywhere, and can't find a disease or anything that looks like what some of my vines have... the The Botrytis Fungus is as close as I can get. My vines are 4-year old Frontenacs. There was one vine that never did well since planting, and was the only one that was having these...

Hi everyone, glad I found this forum! I have lots of questions, and there is SO much information here. Thanks!