don’t let mildew and botrytis get you down Are you a winemaker dealing with mildew and botrytis? In this blog post, we’ll share helpful tips to identify and tackle issues in vineyards, to help you make the best of a bad situation. From dropping compromised fruit early on to incorporating a combination of tannin and sulfur, we’ve got you covered. …
are you faced with under-ripe and pyrazines? In cold years, under-ripe fruit can present challenges with Pyrazines and other under-ripe characters. For pyrazines, it is important to address them at the earliest stages of the winemaking process to get the best results. Working to cover up pyrazines at the end is too late and will be more expensive, less effective, or …
dealing with sour rot this harvest? Sometimes rejecting fruit is not an option, especially when you own it. Here are a few suggestions for dealing with fruit that has sour rot. white grapes Increase your initial SO2 addition. Use Gallic Tannin on both the fruit and juice tank. Centrifuge or Float the juice very clean. Add Yeast Hulls to the …
how do you use oak? Some winemakers are very wary of using oak, treading lightly or avoiding it altogether when crafting their wines. I have heard the phrase “I like to let the fruit speak for itself” many times which is great when you make wines from high quality grapes farmed for quality rather than quantity. In the right hands, …
have your barrels lost their impact? Winemaking and the use of barrels goes back to the Iron Age when Romans marched into Gaul – what is now Western Europe – and eventually replaced their brittle and heavy Clay Amphorae with sturdier and less breakable wooden barrels which were then common throughout that region. They soon found that these barrels not …
inside the blueprint Join us as we take the team from Inside The Blueprint on a walk through our production yard. Cody Ewers, Jason Dodge, and Lee Tatum guide them through the advantages of using Oak Complements for winemakers and distillers alike. They also touch on our location, our processes, and our commitment to innovation within our industry. https://youtu.be/uVhSuhvb4Nc …
a good strategy to prepare harvest orders Why do Winemakers procrastinate getting their harvest orders in? The short answer is that it’s a real pain in the butt. Winemakers are always being told to wait for harvest estimates, marketing plans, sales numbers, budget approvals, industry reports, etc. I learned a long time ago that you can’t wait for all of …
no more wine donuts! Weight, texture, mid-palate, are all words used to describe what I call a wine’s “reward”. Without those attributes a wine is weak, thin, watery, without reward and a virtual wine donut. Of course, a wine donut is what my Winemaker friends and I call a wine without any mid palate – a hole exists where the …
it’s the same oak Oak Alternatives is a term that is often used to describe products that are used in winemaking and spirits production, but the name itself does not accurately reflect what these products really are and quite frankly is misleading. The term oak alternatives suggests substituting oak barrels for something else, in actuality the products are made with …
introducing: american plus plus The most successful businesses are always innovating, and that certainly applies to Oak Barrel Alternative companies. Founded in 1979, Innerstave was the first company to offer premium oak complements to the wine industry and after more than forty years, we are still hard at work creating new and exciting offerings. a new year, a new toast …