Advice For The Intermediate Home Winemaker

You’ve made a few (or more than a few) batches of homemade wine and you’re definitely not a novice anymore. With every batch you make, you learn a little more about how wine is made and the chemical reactions that turn grapes into the wonderful thing we know as wine. You’re ready to start doing things a little differently. You may well want to keep using wine ingredient kits or perhaps you’re ready to move on to using some other wine making supplies like a larger fermentation vessel so that you can start to make your wines in larger quantities. Now that you’ve established some confidence in your abilities as a winemaker, it’s time to begin exploring more of what the world of wine has to offer – and there is always more to discover as you go. Keep reading for a few ideas to keep your wine making going forward to bigger and better things.

1) Make Wine In Bulk:

Quality should always trump quantity when it comes to wine, but once you’ve got a recipe that turns out good consistently then it’s time to start making larger batches. A lot of home vintners find themselves running out of one batch before the next is ready, so making more at once solves this problem. For this, you probably will need a larger fermentation vessel and of course more bottles (and space for this new and larger wine making equipment, of course). If you’re currently using one of the smaller capacity wine making equipment kits, it might be time to upgrade to a larger kit.

2) Be Careful With Additives And Adjuncts:

Always keep in mind that making wine is a lot like cooking: it’s a lot easier to add things than it is to take them out. It’s not a bad thing to experiment with additives and adjuncts to try to get the best flavors out of your wines, but do so with a very light hand and go just a little at a time. It’s all too easy to go too far and end up ruining what would otherwise have been a perfectly good batch of wine. Because really, if you’ve added too much of an additive or adjunct then it’s probably too late.

3) Prevent Oxidation:

One thing that ruins more homemade wine than almost anything else is oxidation. It’s a shame, especially since it’s so easy to prevent. Sulfites are what commercial winemakers usually add to wines to keep oxygen from spoiling the wine, and you can do the same at home. Campden tablets are all you need. Again, just like with the additives and adjunct you have to be careful not to overdo it.