Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in apple wine, other blogs on Aug 31st, 2009
Vote For Washington Winemaker! Grapeseek is a directory of grape and wine related links, and they are having a vote for their top ten. I would love it if you voted for Washington Winemaker. Click here to cast your vote. Apple harvest has begun in my backyard, and that’s got me thinking about wine. I’ve [...]
Posted in cherry wine on May 25th, 2009
Two years ago I set out to make wine from cherries the way you would make red wine from grapes. I bought 43 lb (19.5 kg) of Bing Cherries from Safeway, put them in a large picnic cooler, and crushed them the old fashioned way. Adjusting the sugar was a little tedious, but I was [...]
Posted in ingredients, rhubarb wine on May 18th, 2009
Rhubarb is a high quality ingredient that can make a great, age-worthy wine. It’s also a versatile ingredient that takes to many different styles. To take advantage of its versatility, you need to know what it brings to your wine and what you need to add.
Posted in apple wine, mead on Oct 1st, 2008
I’ll often make a fruit mead the way you would make a second wine. I made a cherry mead like that last year, for example, and I’ll make an apple mead the same way. I saved the pulp from apples I juiced to make wine, put it in a ziplock bag, and froze it. That’s [...]
Posted in apple wine on Sep 29th, 2008
Making apple wine from your own apples! Equipment and ingredients you will need, measurements you will need to make – and how to do it.
Posted in cherry wine, commercial wine on Jul 14th, 2008
I’m still trying to get the hang of cherry wine, but while I tinker and tweak I might be able to buy some from the Ten Spoon Vineyard. This Montana winery uses Lambert cherries from Flathead Lake to make a dry red wine. I always get excited when I find the pros making “fruit wine.” [...]
Posted in apple wine, mead, measurement & testing, tomato wine on Feb 28th, 2008
Cherry Mead: The case of the disappearing acid Suppose you measure 6 g/L titratable acidity (TA), then add about 1.3 g/L of tartaric acid. After you let it sit for a while you’d expect a TA over 7, right? Me too. You certainly wouldn’t expect just a little over 5 (call it 5.2), would you? [...]
Posted in peapod burgundy on Feb 20th, 2008
This blog is about making wine, so I don’t talk about my vegetable garden very much. My gardening and winemaking overlap in some ways like rhubarb wine, oregano wine, tomato wine, and the one-pint (500 ml) batch of wine from my own grapes. Well there’s going to be some more overlap this year, because I’m [...]
Posted in commercial wine, rhubarb wine, winemaking on Feb 13th, 2008
Most Rhubarb Wine recipes call for 3-5 lb of fruit – and a lot of water – for each gallon of wine. Commercial wineries aren’t allowed to add that much water, so how do they make rhubarb wine?
Posted in Recipes, rhubarb wine on Jan 23rd, 2008
I grow the rhubarb in my garden, harvest several times (freezing each harvest), and make a gallon or two of wine every year. Here’s how I do it.