Part of the traditional process of red winemaking involves a maceration step, allowing the skins and seeds of the grapes to “steep” together for a certain period of time in order to extract the desired compounds that make up a…
There is quite a lot of research going on out there exploring different alternatives to using SO2 during winemaking as a result of the negative connotations associated with excess SO2. While SO2 (a.k.a. sulfur dioxide) is naturally present in grapes…
Over the past few years, I’ve covered the topic of oak and oak alternatives several times on this blog. Many studies have examined the chemical and sensory differences of wine when exposed to different types of oak and other woods,…
Many of us are familiar with the term “terroir”, though some are torn as to whether this is a real phenomenon, or if it was just something that the French made up to help sell their wines (I tend to…