Washington Winemaker Goes Mobile
Posted in site maintenance on Feb 15th, 2010
I’ve updated Washington Winemaker to make it more accessible to mobile devices like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Motorola Droid.
Tag Archive 'nad'
Mulled Wine
Posted in Recipes, tasting, troubleshooting on Dec 3rd, 2009
Mulled wine: just the thing on a cold night, a Christmas tradition, and just possibly a way to rescue my wine from store-bought grapes. Here’s how I plan to make it.
How To Make Bland Wine: Use grocery store grapes
Posted in tasting on Nov 15th, 2009
Wine from supermarket grapes is bland, so use frozen concentrate like Welch’s instead. It’s easier, cheaper, and tastes better.
Overlake Cabernet Sauvignon
Posted in commercial wine on Aug 17th, 2009
I was happy enough with the Fetzer Cabernet from Trader Joe’s to give another of their budget Cabernets a try. Like the Fetzer, this comes recommended by Jason, and it set me back $6. Running the numbers Couldn’t find any information about this wine, so the only reported measurement I have is 14.75% alcohol. My [...]
Welch’s Wine: Cheap, quick, and surprisingly good
Posted in welch's wine on Jul 6th, 2009
With good winemaking technique, you can turn Welch’s grape juice into a crisp dry white wine that’s surprisingly good and perfect for summer.
2006 Fetzer Valley Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon
Posted in commercial wine on Jun 15th, 2009
Jason mentioned this wine favorably on his blog, and I decided to give it a try. I bought it at Trader Joe’s for $6.50. That’s a good price to go along with the good recommendation. Now lets have a look under the cork. Running the numbers I’ll start with the usual analysis. Fetzer didn’t have [...]
Cherry Wine Recipe: Bottled!
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 [...]
Bonsai Vineyard: Drip Irrigation
Posted in bonsai orchard, bonsai vineyard on May 3rd, 2009
With ten grape vines in pots, and another ten fruit trees, I’ve been doing a lot of hand watering. It’s become quite a chore, so I’ve decided to put in a drip irrigation system. This will have water coming from a garden hose, through a pressure reducing fitting, into a feeder bottle so that I [...]
Kirkland 2007 Sonoma County Chardonnay
Posted in commercial wine on Apr 13th, 2009
I had high hopes for this wine ($9 at Costco), because the Kirkland brand is usually pretty good and I liked the Kirkland Sauvignon Blanc. So how did it stack up? Running the numbers When I make wine at home, I measure the specific gravity, titratable acidity, and pH. I thought I’d start doing that [...]
A Simple Mead Recipe: Bottled!
Posted in mead on Mar 23rd, 2009
It’s been nearly two years since I started this batch. I added acid and oak chips to my simple mead recipe in making this still, dry, lightly oaked mead. It fermented out to a specific gravity (SG) of 0.996, and I didn’t sweeten. Since the original gravity was about 1.082, I’m calling it 11% alcohol [...]