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You may already be aware of this, but Sonoma county winegrowers association has an online marketplace for Sonoma grapes: https://sonomawinegrape.org/marketplace/grapes/ Most listings include a note of whether they're willing to sell to home winegrowers, which I think implicitly means smaller...

Not sure I fully agree here... certainly there is less chance of O2 ingress in a carboy/keg than in a barrel but there are other SO2 reactions that can occur, particularly if there is some underlying/undetected issue with the wine (chemical or microbiological). My current approach is to test...

I have my 2023 Syrah in new Hungarian oak (30gal) and although it's still early I'm liking the results so far. I thought I might be racking out of barrel by now so as to not overwhelm the wine with oak, but so far there is a nice (subtle) vanilla note developing and no overtly woody flavors...

I've always used something like the Scottlabs protocol described above, with GoFerm and adding juice/must until temperature is within 10C/18F of the bulk juice/must. I typically pitch same day as making the starter. Why mess with success! Though reportedly some yeast strains do better if...

Bear in mind that winebusiness.com is largely a resource for people making wine from grapes... Your rule of thumb highlighted in green is what i use as a starting point when deciding on adjustments to grape must, but even then as others have said, buffering capacity varies between different...

Agree with others that open top (ie with a loose cover) is fine for reds. For white/rose where you want to preserve more delicate flavors, I'd go wwith a closed (but of course vented!) vessel as soon as you start fermenting, as well as try to keep the temperatures relatively cool.

A surprising number of folks I've spoken to seem to think that there is a 'blanket' effect even if you only introduce a small amount of argon, but as you say physics doesn't work that way.

Thanks for posting! I believe you can get bell-shaped diffusers that direct the gas flow parallel to the surface (there is a picture of one here), but you still of course need to fill the headspace - the 'layer' is transient at best. I'm not sure if those bells come in a size small enough to...

Rotisserie leg of lamb... stuffed with a herb and garlic paste, basted with a (home made) white pinot noir basting sauce. It started to rain a few minutes after taking this, fortunately my deck has a covered area... ETA: It's a shame the color balance is a bit off but you get the idea... 😋

If you're just doing a bottle at a time - even a case at a time - I'm not sure you need a fancy, automated solution. I have a tub which I fill with acidified water containing KMBS (K-meta) and dunk my bottles in there for a few minutes before setting them in an old wine rack (turned on its side)...

Sounds great! It will be fine up to mid-80s F as you state. In fact when we're fermenting whole grapes we often try to get the temperature up in order to get better extraction from the skins, though I'm guessing that won't be such an issue with the kit.

Rather than add your solera wine immediately after fermenting the new vintage, I would hold it over for another year and blend at your next bottling. So keep your 2023 (30 gal) until late summer/fall 2025, then blend "Solera #1" (2023 (30 gal) + 2024 (30 gal)). You could then bottle 30 gal...

Congratulations and good luck! You may know this already but there is another Meyer winery in CA, in Mendocino county: https://www.meyerfamilycellars.com. I have no connection to them other than that I live relatively nearby...

Black trumpet mushrooms (foraged from our hillside) with homegrown asparagus and garlic, over cornmeal pasta (not shown). It's been a great year for black trumpets!

This might be a better fit for the commercial winemaking forum? Crossflow units are really expensive, so if you want to go that way it might be best to see if there is a vendor in your area that rents them out. Some will even come on site and do it for you, but I'm guessing that won't be cost...

On end with the cork pointing down.

Brand new, straight out of the bag. I've never sanitized corks, though I guess I might do so if they were old and stored in uncertain conditions. I always store bottles on point in cases and haven't generally had a problem.

I think I have to update this based on recent experience. I estimate that I have opened at most 50 bottles of my 2021 pinot noir, which was bottled using the corks mentioned above (1 3/4" grade 3). On 2 occasions the wine was corked. I was willing to assume that the first one was just bad...

Yesterday I had occasion to measure pH for the same sample in two separate labs. I agree that +/- 0.02 units is in the noise - what you would expect given the precision and accuracy of the instruments. What I actually saw was 0.1 unit difference. That indicates a problem in one lab or both...

I always stir (with a stir bar) or gently agitate (by hand). Since the meter works by measuring hydrogen ion exchange between the electrode and solution, it always seemed to me that stirring would ensure a constant environment around the probe, dispersing any local accumulation or deficit of H+...