Joy of Home Wine Making (53 page)

Malic acid:
Another acid present in fruits that is used to acidify wine.

Mature:
When your wine settles down and gets a job? Nah, when the wine has aged properly and is ready to drink.

Metabisulphite:
Sodium or potassium metabisulphite, used to sanitize equipment and must, and to stabilize wine. See Campden tablet.

Must:
The juices, sugars, and water that become wine when the yeast has finished its work.

Oak chips, sticks, or extract:
Used to give red wines an oaky taste, as if they had been aged in a romantic white oak barrel instead of glass. Easy to overuse.

Oxidation:
The chemical reaction between air and wine that renders the wine brown and disappointing, unless the wine is sherry, at which point all bets are off. Generally to be avoided.

Pectic enzyme:
An enzyme that destroys pectin, the substance in some fruits that causes them to gel. Pectin is good in jelly, bad in wine.

Petillant:
A polite way of saying fizzy wine, pronounced ..

pH:
An acidity/alkalinity scale that will tell you, if you use your acid test kit, how acid (or not) your must is.

Potassium sorbate:
See Stabilize.

Proof:
How much alcohol is present in a wine. Proof is roughly twice the percent alcohol. For example, if something is 30 proof, it has 15 percent alcohol in it.

Racking:
Siphoning the wine off the lees, or sediment. No torture is actually used.

Saccharometer:
See Hydrometer.

Siphon:
Using gravity and a tube to persuade a liquid to migrate from one vessel to another. The process of racking uses siphoning to take the wine off the lees.

Social wines:
Wines that are too unusual to drink with food, so you palm them off on your friends when they come to your parties or after they help you pull the VW engine out of the car. Potato/mint is much easier to drink when you are not trying to make it go with enchiladas.

Sour:
You don’t want your wine to be sour. Sour is for lemons and vinegar.

Sparkling wines:
Wines with little bubbles in them, more than when the wine is merely petillant. Champagne is a sparkling wine (some would say the ONLY sparkling wine, but some people will say anything to get a laugh).

Specific gravity:
The measurement of the density of a liquid, particularly when sugar is added. Sugar is heavier than water, and alcohol isn’t. Nice how it works out.

Stabilize:
Using a chemical such as potassium sorbate or extra alcohol to make a wine stable and to prevent further fermentation.

Still wine:
A wine that has no bubbles. A Zen wine.

Stuck fermentation:
A fermentation that has halted before all the sugar is transformed into alcohol and needs to be coaxed back into action so you can get on with your winemaking.

Table wine:
Wine successfully served with food, open to many opinions.

Tannin:
An astringent. It usually refers to grape tannin, although it is also present in oak (ask anyone who has ever eaten acorn mush). Winemakers add it to fruit musts that lack tannin, to give the wine some bite and to help clear the wine. Traditionally more present in red wines than in white.

Tartaric acid:
Another helpful acid present in most fruits, especially grapes, and part of most acid blends.

Titration:
A method used in some tests for acid in the fruit or wine.

Varietal:
A term used to describe the variety of grapes a wine has been made out of. In California, the wine must contain at least 51 percent Cabernet grapes to be called a Cabernet.

Vintage:
The year a wine was made. Nonvintage wines are made of a blend of different years. That’s all it means. Thus when someone says they own a vintage ’56 Chevy, they mean none of its parts were made in other years. If more than 51 percent Studebaker parts were used, you couldn’t call it a Chevy anymore. See Varietal.

Wine enthusiast:
A person who will cheerfully converse with almost anyone about wine and/or winemaking with the simple goals of furthering knowledge and having a good time.

Wine snob:
A person whose opinions and tastes are invariably superior to anyone else’s.

Wombat:
A medium-sized marsupial from Australia. Just wanted to see if anyone ever actually reads the glossary besides librarians and editors.

Yeast:
Our hero. This “sugar fungus” eats the sugar, makes alcohol and carbon dioxide, and turns our must into wine, then conveniently expires. Isn’t Mother Nature wonderful?

Yeast nutrient:
Extra vitamins and food to feed the yeast in our fruit, vegetable, and grain wines.

APPENDIX D

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Some of these books are really old. You can still find them in used bookstores or in libraries. Some are journals, the best of which are
American Journal of Enology and Viticulture
out of Davis, California,
California and Western States Grape Grower
out of Fresno, California, and
Wine Spectator
out of New York. Many out-of-print journals are still available in large library collections. Ask your local library. Some of these books are concerned with commercial winemaking, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them.

Books marked with an asterisk are highly recommended. Books marked (OP) are out of print.

Ace, Donald, and James H. Eakin.
Winemaking as a Hobby
. The Pennsylvania State University College of Agriculture, 1977. (OP)

Amerine, M. A., and C. S. Ough.
Methods for Analysis of Musts and Wine
. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1980.

Amerine, M. A., & V. L. Singleton.
Wine: An Introduction
. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.

^*
Anderson, Stanley F., and Dorothy Anderson.
Winemaking: Recipes, Equipment, and Techniques for Making Wine at Home
. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1989.

^*
Berry, C. J. J.
First Steps in Winemaking
. Ann Arbor, Mich.: G.W. Kent for Amateur Winemaker, 1991.

_____.
130 New Winemaking Recipes
. England: Amateur Winemaker Publications, 1985.

_____.
Winemaking With Canned & Dried Fruits
. Andover, England: Amateur Winemaker, 1972. (OP)

Bravery, H. E.
Successful Winemaking at Home
. New York: Arco Books, 1984.

Cooke, George M., et al.
Making Table Wine at Home
. Oakland, Calif.: Publications Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources, University of California, 1988.

De Chambeau, André.
Creative Winemaking
. Rochester, N.Y.: WWWWW/Information Services, 1977. (OP)

Dart, C. J., and D. A. Smith.
Woodwork for Winemakers
. England: Amateur Winemaker, 1972. (OP)

Deal, Josephine.
Making Cider
. Ann Arbor, Mich.: G.W. Kent, 1985.

Delman, Philip.
Ten Types of Table Wines
. London: Mills & Boon, 1971. (OP)

Duncan, Peter.
Progressive Winemaking
. Ann Arbor, Mich.: G.W. Kent for The Amateur Winemaker, 1991.

Gayre and Nigg.
Brewing Mead: Wassail
. Boulder, Colo.: Brewers Publications, 1986.

Hopkins, Albert A.
Home Made Beverages
. New York: The Scientific American Publishing Company, 1919. (OP)

Irwin, Judith.
A Step by Step Guide to Making Home Made Wine
. Stamford, Conn.: Longmeadow Press, 1993.

Jackson, Ron S.
Wine Science: Principles and Applications
. San Diego: Academic Press, 1994.

Jagendorf, M. A.
Folk Wines, Cordials & Brandies
. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1963.

Johnson, Hugh, and James Halliday.
The Vintner’s Art: How Great Wines Are Made
. New York: S&S Trade, 1992.

Keers, John H.
How to Make Liqueurs at Home
. New York: Manor Books, 1974. (OP)

Lichine, Alexis.
Alexis Lichine’s New Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

Lucas Cyril.
Making Sparkling Wines
. Toronto: Mills & Boon, 1971. (OP)

Lundy, Desmond.
No Sour Grapes: Introduction to Winemaking
. Victoria, BC: Fermenthaus, 1987.

Lyon, Richard.
Vine to Wine
. Napa, Calif.: Stonecrest Press, 1985.

^*
Massaccesi, Ramond.
Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook
. place and publisher unknown, but every wine supply place carries it, 1976.

Mitchell, J. R.
Scientific Winemaking Made Easy
. England, The Amateur Winemaker. (OP)

Morse, Roger A.
Making Mead
. Ithaca, N.Y.: Wicwas Press, 1992.

Ough, Cornelius S.
Winemaking Basics
. New York: Haworth Press, 1992.

^*
Papazian, Charlie.
The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing
. New York: Avon Books, 1991.

Pinnegar, Francis.
How to Make Home Wines and Beers
. London: Hamlyn Books, 1971. (OP)

Proulx, Annie, and Lew Nichols.
Sweet and Hard Cider
. New York: Garden Way, 1980. (OP)

Roate, Mettja C.
How to Make Wine in Your Own Kitchen
. New York: McFadden Books, 1963. (OP)

Robinson, Jancis.
The Oxford Companion to Wine
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Seltman, Charles.
Wine in the Ancient World
. London: Routledge and Kegan, 1957. (OP)

Sperling, L. H.
Fruit Wine: a Home Winemaker’s Guide to Making Wine from Fruits
. Rochester, N.Y.: American Wine Society, special issue # 17, 1993.

Tritton, S. M.
Amateur Wine Making
. London: Faber & Faber, 1971. (OP)

Turner, B. C. A.
Fruit Wines
. Toronto: Mills & Boon, 1973. (OP)

Turner, B. C. A., and C. J. J. Berry.
The Winemaker’s Companion
. London: Mills & Boon, 1968. (OP)

Wagner, P. M.
Grapes into Wine
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

Ward, Philip.
The Home Winemaker’s Handbook
. New York: Lyons & Burford, 1994.

Wright, Helen S.
Old Time Recipes for Homemade Wines
. Boston, Mass.: Dana Estes and Co., 1909. (OP)

APPENDIX E

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

FORMULA FOR METRIC CONVERSION

METRIC EQUIVALENTS

VOLUMES

1 U.S. gallon=4 quarts=8 pints=16 cups

1 U.S. quart=2 pints=32 ounces

1 U.S. cup=8 ounces=16 tablespoons=48 teaspoons

3 teaspoons=1 tablespoon

4 tablespoons=¼ cup

LIQUOR BOTTLE CAPACITIES

WINE BOTTLE CAPACITIES

TEMPERATURES

To convert Fahrenheit to centigrade, subtract 32 from Fahrenheit, multiply by 5, then divide by 9.

To convert centigrade to Fahrenheit, multiply centigrade by 9, divide by 5, then add 32.

APPENDIX F

WINE SUPPLY ADDRESSES

Check your local Yellow Pages listings under Winemaking. Also check under Beer Making Supplies, because someone who supplies beer brewers will frequently have some supplies for home winemaking.

Here are some reliable mail order houses: