GrapeCrafter

Hi I'm not sure this is the right place to ask this question but ive spent weeks researching with little results; I make wine, for myself not as a business, and now i know that filtration can be looked down upon, and I personally dont require it for my wine, however the woman I intend to marry has an slight intollerance to yeast and can only drink wines filtered to a kosher degree (i
know its .4 something microns right?) and she Loves wine, especially my wine, so i would like to filter half of all my batches(or all if im as pleased after filtration as i was before) for her to be able to enjoy it; would you happen to know of a relatively cheap($100-150 initial investment) filtration method for home use that would produce kosher (yeast free) wine? I'd heard that forcing it through some under the sink water filters that go to the right micron size can work-having the right micron size filter-? Thanks in advance for your time, if you cant answer my entire question maybe you can tell me what exact size/micron filter im looking for to remove yeast?

Enraged Poet

In my consulting work, I see all too often the all-powerful winemaker lording his position over the defenseless grower in order to impress his clueless owner-boss, forcing half the crop to be dropped from perfectly balanced vines and resulting in shitty quality. It's positively feudal!

What's really missing is a spirit of cooperation between growers and wineries -- what's good for each is good for all. The grower is the guy who shows up in the vineyard every morning, thus a resource worth cultivating. This isn't 1970. More and more, the good growers are coming to understand wine quality concerns and to be in a better position to make the vine balance call than the winemaker, particularly if his experience is in another climate.

Dear Clark:
I met a wino a few weeks ago who spouted a term at a lecture that described the color deficient qualities of Nebbiolo, Pinot noir and Grenache. He said that they were all "monosomething saccharides". Do you know what the term is (and, hey, do you agree with him)?
PS: Great piece on PSs.

-Patrick

Here's a winemaking brainteaser question I get asked a lot this time of year:

Hey Clark,
Could you check my math on making some port?
I have 4.63 tons of Petite Sirah, ~810 gals

It came in at 28.5 Brix
Hi-Proof = 84.5% Alc

Target Port Alc = 18.50 - 18.75
Target Residual Sugar 8 - 10%

Add ______ gals of Hi-Proof at ______ Brix

Preliminary calcs gave me 114 gals at 13.5 brix ??

Dan

My assistant winemaker Petar Kirilov, a Bulgarian oenologist who I've had the pleasure to work with for two years now, has just put up vinoenology.com, a terrific site which facilitates, among other things, winemaking calculations vital to do swiftly and accurately during crush. This was a lot of work for Petar to set up, and I consider him a real hero to make this available to the winemaking world. Wines and Vines just published a great article concerning the site.

I think the site might be interesting to anyone who wants to take a peek at the real live winemaking process as opposed to papparazzi fairytales.

This being harvest season, I thought I'd share a typical consulting conversation. I taught for 24 years a class at the UC Davis Extension called "Fundamentals of Wine Chemistry," and this is a former student's question which encapsulates many nuances of must correction principles which may be of interest to commercial winemakers and home enthusiasts, and may offer for general readership a glimpse into real life winemaking.