Making Winery Quality White Wine From Juice... At Home!

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In this video, we are making a high quality Traminette wine from cold settled juice. You can make very high quality white wine at home from juice, using a handful of simple techniques. These include proper fermentation temperature control, yeast selection, SO2 management, and more.

[@helmutsasse5199]

Helmut How can anybody give that men a tom down with so much expertise? There must be something wrong with them. Sir, you just keep on bringing us the videos I sure learned a lot from you. Thanks Helmut

[@dennisk5082]

Great info. Very knowledgeable.

[@nickfoos3090]

Great video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I’m still an early amateur at this…(or maybe an experienced beginner : ) This video has a lot of great information that may get me outta the rut I’ve been stuck in. Thanks!

[@GorskiNunavut]

Great lecture!

[@windenergyfarm]

very good explanations on every topic covered

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

Thank you!

[@allmorgan]

Regarding the DAP and Fermaid-K, I always liked the analogy that Fermaid-K is a bowl of fresh fruit salad that is chock full of vitamins, minerals and natural sugars, and DAP is a packet of high fructose corn sugar, offering quick energy but no nutritional value.

[@johnburke8337]

Thanks for pushing out a ton of really good content recently. It's fun seeing you cover white wines a bit more and some of the fun techniques you can use while working with them; the hyper-oxidization video was especially good. It doesn't seem to me like it would be something you'd be doing with the projects you've shown here, but is there a chance you'll be covering the process of battonage soon?

[@hummingbird3771]

I'd love to see that! I'm skipping malolactic on my orange wine, but still want to give a rounded mouth feel.

[@DavidAbraham504]

Thank you for sharing

[@dndaughtery]

Thanks. I’ve never made wine but if I’m gonna try Id rather do it right. Gonna have to watch this severe times but it’s time we’ll spent.

[@hummingbird3771]

I've always used champagne yeast in my ciders because I'm making more of an apple wine, 11.5% or so. But I'll definitely try the Fresco! I poured cider on the lees from an orange wine I'm making with unknown, 1950's vines in Utah, and it brought out a strong apricot nectar with a feather kiss of tannins. The PH meter you recommend to teste arrived in time to adjust the cider acids while it's still in primary ferment. With those lovely tannins I want to bulk age this for a year, and then keg it. So exciting!! Thanks for the amazing information, and insights. It's so much easier to master a recipe when we get theory behind the instructions. You upped my home-made hooch game, considerably!!

[@karenplusrex6407]

Thanks

[@janstewart2041]

If you ferment a smaller one or two gallon batch when you do that kind of batch you can use that to fill the head space after racking

[@comesahorseman]

FWIW, I order from Presque Isle Wine Cellars (N.Y.) or Peter Brehm Vineyards (west coast), had good luck with both. Thanks for the tip about Renaissance yeast!

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

The H2S free yeast are such an incredible tool for white wine making. Have you tried any whites from Brehm? I actually grew up about 25 minutes from Presque Isle Wine Cellars.

[@comesahorseman]

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel yes, I've done Columbia Gorge Riesling from Brehm, with RHST/Austrian yeast; steely, needed age, light H2S late in primary resolved with warmth (whew!). Now I'll have to give Renaissance yeast a try with a white, probably Riesling. Lots of good info on your channel, keep it coming! 👍

[@SirWussiePants]

I have had decent experiences with Brehm. I havent tried Presque Isle yet. I get some great juice from Fulkerson Winery on Seneca Lake depending on the year. I have Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Traminette and Vincent going now and just bottled some estate Marechal Foch, some estate Blueberry plus an estate Blueberry/Blackberry wine. Busy time of the year! The advantage with something like Brehm or Wine Grapes Direct is that frozen juice is available year round. I will need a rest in a few months, but will definitely get the itch again early next year and frozen juice fills that void.

[@comesahorseman]

@@SirWussiePants 👍👍 Got very ripe Washington State Cabernet from Presque Isle a few years back. Fermented with RC212 looking for more roundness, malolactic with MCW strain. It worked, the stuff was rich enough to stain your teeth purple but much softer than the usual Washington Cabernet. So, I've had very good experiences with Presque Isle, I can recommend them for both fruit & equipment/supplies. Be well!

[@robbiboss8494]

Awsome and informative video Rick. I made a Frontanac blanc at the end of August it's pretty darn clear already, how long would you keep it under airlock before bottling, would it be a good idea to put it out in the garage for a bit to help it drop out crystals now that temps here in wisconsin are getting cooler? any thoughts would be great. THX.

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

Hi Robbi. I'd move it to the cool garage and bottle in a month or so if it is crystal clear. May want to lightly degas since it will be pretty young and probably a little CO2 saturated still. No need to get too crazy with the degasser on a white wine.

[@paulkirby7965]

Do you recommend any alternatives to the Renaissance Fresco yeast for a Pinot Gris?

[@dariachugreeva1942]

can we use a few different types of yeast to make a wine more complex?

[@GrimReefer1983]

Would you add pectic enzyme to a apple wine, made from store bought apple juice? I have a apple wine/cider made from store apple juice, that has been cold fermenting for about a month. Its slowly clearing up, but it still has some slight haze to it.. Would pectic enzyme (have) help(ed) whit that?

[@dndaughtery]

Found ya on Apple Music.

[@TheVerecundVigneron]

21:30 -- I make mostly white wines, or amber wines, or rosé wines. From my own grapes. I never do malolactic fermentation. I do not disagree with anything said in this video. In fact, it is all excellent advise. But.... First - Not adding K-Meta when racking will not automatically turn the wine brown. I have done many white wines that never got sulfites after harvest, and never went "brown", nor were oxidized. And I am not running a system much different from displayed here. But I do have complete control over my grapes. For what that is worth. Second - Adding sulfites will in fact help to prevent malolactic fermentation.... But if one makes only white wines (or combinations of similar), like I do, then malolactic bacteria is really not a concern as they are not in the winery. It is more the "mixed" wineries, home or commercial, that do both red and whites, that run the risk of cross infection. So those do need extra protection for the whites. Hope this helps.

[@jamesjones-yn1sv]

I don't use brix ; could you give the S.G. reading of the juice and the start S.g. after adding the sugar and then final S.G. when finished fermenting also is it 5 galls. and how much total sugar. was used thanks kind regards j.jones

[@spooky130u]

Coming from the brewing side, I have two questions for you. First, the yeast starter. I was taught by a professional brewing friend to brew on his level on a professional level at home or at a brewpub. So now you know where I'm coming from. He taught me to use a bit of the finished and chilled (obviously) wort for a yeast starter, starting in a (again, obviously, cleaned and sanitized) 250mL erlenmyer flask, then up to 500mL. And when the 500mL starter is at high krausen (foaming), it's ready to pitch. Is there any reason not to use this method when making wine? Second question, using pure 02 and an oxygenation stone. I'd buy the industrial O2 bottles (the red ones from any hardware store), hook them up to a tube with an oxygenation stone (well sanitized, of course) and BEFORE adding the yeast, crank the valve up to full with the stone on the bottom of the fermenter, and let it run for about 60 seconds. Then add the yeast starter, and my time from pitching the yeast to full krausen would be about 30--45 minutes (vs 12--24 hours by just shaking, giving any tiny amount of bacteria a chance to catch up with the yeast). That ended up with me making the very best all-grain brews ever, including one Munich Lager (brewed with Wyeast's WY-2308 Munich Lager yeast) that was perfectly clear by the end of primary fermentation (only about three weeks vs the usual four for a lager) and only got one week of lagering as a technicality. It was so clear that when the glass was held up to the light in my kitchen, you could clearly see the pattern on the globe around the light. Granted, that was mostly because as a tech at Wyeast confirmed, their rating really needed to be changed from moderately medium flocculation to medium-high (high would be like one British yeast, where they have to continuously rouse the yeast), but I still don't think it would have performed nearly as well with shaking vs injecting pure O2. So the question here is probably obvious enough: rather than shaking, is it ok to use the same oxygenation process when making wine (and probably getting a much faster and more vigorous startup than just shaking)?

[@treich1234]

25:13 Is pasteurization an alternative method of stabilization?

[@robbiboss8494]

Hello Rick, How long do you typically bulk age your white wines made from fresh grapes? and how long is it necessary to cold crash that wine? any thoughts would be great.

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

I normally bulk age whites and roses for 4-6 months and reds for 12mo to 2yrs. In either case I plan to bottle age for about two months before getting into the wine. You can do a little less for either if you wanted but I'd still plan on letting them get some age in bottle. Most reds will continue improving up to about 3-5 years. They may be good younger but "best" if you can let them get a little age. Whites peak a lot younger and often start to go downhill after about 2 years. Still may be quite good but not as good as they were at 1yr in most cases.

[@maheshlund3951]

Please show us how to make honey wine 🍷 Please make a video of that. Thanks 😊

[@Poogoo701]

Have you ever tried to adding "sacrificial tannins" when making white wines. According to Bucher Vaslin North America videos they can inhibit laccase enzymes that cause the browning of wine. I don't think they'll affect the moutfeel too much if used correctly since most are precipitated out by the time you finished with the juice.

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

I have not, but was just talking to a winery a couple weeks ago who was planning to dabble in them. They had some heat stability issues, where a couple wines had clouded after being bottles and had hoped it would eliminate that risk. If your grapes have a lot of black rot or botrytis it would be worth pulling out some fancy tricks as a hopefully cheap insurance. I do have some white wine sacrificial tannin on the way for a Mead that I hope will contribute some additional mouth feel a bit since meads can be a little thin.

[@jacksparrow9324]

Question for the airlock if I used a balloon with holes in it I can keep the balloon since day 1 to 1 month while the wine ferment??

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

You could keep it as long as it stays inflated. I probably wouldn't plan to age it particularly long with just the balloon though.

[@alimohamed-xn1nz]

In my country alcohol drinks are prohibited if u do wine without using chemical material I mean just bread yeast and table sugar

[@jimdent351]

I've been using DAP in all my wines because I thought it was the thing to do. I always used far less than the package recommended. With my wine from grapes this year I added 1 tsp/4 gallons (about 15 liters). Do you think this could be the reason that my wines always smell so clean when I ferment? The house almost never smells of wine like a home brew shop does. Since the wine smells so clean when it ferments, this begs the question, does a really happy ferment mean that I'm missing out on flavors that would normally be considered desirable in a wine?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

It depends on what you are making. If you are making wines from kits they should have plenty of nitrogen so you will never notice a deficiency. If making from grapes, it will depend on the YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen). Anything below 100 can start to get sketchy with certain strains of yeast if supplemental nitrogen is not added. It is like a garden. If the soil is rich, it may not need anything but if it is deficient, the plants will show it. Normally a wine with excess nitrogen will smell "clean" where too little will start to throw sulfide odors. Too much isn't really a good thing though since any unused nitrogen changed spoilage organisms after fermentation is complete.

[@alexlarsen6413]

I have a question: made apple wine using Bayanus yeast strain with stated alc. tolerance of 14%. The wine however ended up at 16% ABV, so given the yeast had not only reached its tolerance but surpassed it by 2% I decided to back-sweeten and bottle without stabilizing the wine...mostly because I wanted to see if I could get it to carbonize at least a little bit. It hasn't carbonized but it's really amazing the way it is and I'd like to preserve it. Can I use potassium metabisulfate and sorbate now, at this point, after I've already bottled the wine?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

Your best bet now would be to keep the wine refrigerated.

[@alexlarsen6413]

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel I'll definitely put the bottles in the fridge before opening them, I would've done so anyhow but I kinda still want it to carbonize if at all possible so I'll pour some into a plastic bottle that'll be a test one and keep them at room temperature. I guess, I meant if I could calculate the amount of the stabilizer per bottle (I know it would be like a few grains of sand) and put some in a few bottles?

[@carolynchurchill2010]

Can I ferment my Riesling after the fermenting starts in a refrigerator at 45°?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

If it is already fermenting, you will just want to try to encourage it along. At 45, most yeast strains will get very stressed and create hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell). To try to bring it back from the stressful condition you will want to warm it up to about 70, splash it up to give the yeast some air and give the yeast some nutrient (DAP). With some luck you will be able to save it but it won't save itself. Depending on what wild strain started in the wine, it may go okay or may be a real battle. If it is an entirely different species of yeast it will stall out around 3-5% ABV and you will need to inoculate with a reliable strain. If it is a strain of wine yeast (s. Cerivasaie) which it probably is, you will struggle to out-compete it since it is already established. Your best bet is to help it to stay happy.

[@kennith.]

I looked around, but it seems the Renaissance Fresco Yeast is difficult to come by in Canada. Can you suggest a potential source for this yeast.

[@Siwashable]

Bosa Winery, Burnaby BC. I got the Renaissance Avante from them... good yeast.

[@kennith.]

@@Siwashable Thank you

[@GameOvrMan]

I accidentally added sodium metabi sulfite. What can I do to fix it?

[@dennisvandenberg1742]

I actually made wine from Sauvignon Gris grapes and added the pectic enzyme right after crushing, let it sit for half a day, and then pressed the juice. Then, as you recommended, I cold settled it, racked, and initiated fermentation. I didn't know you had to add pectic enzyme in a later stage, which means that my wine probably extracted too much from the skins and it is almost like a light pink color. So did I accidentally make a rosé here? That would be a shame :/

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

You may have made an "orange wine" which is when you intentionally give a white wine a little skin and seed time. Normally a rose is made from red grapes with a little skin time.

[@HuugyBearInc]

Did anyone know where he bought his juice from. I like on the west coast and I know he does not… any good suggestions for buying quality grapes or juice on the west coast?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

This juice was either from Arrowhead in Erie, PA or it may have been from my backyard vineyard. You will want to find a vineyard that is willing to sell juice, or you can consider frozen juice which a few online retailers like Peter Brehm will sell you.

[@DavidAbraham504]

I have notice that before the white fruit wines clear they have like bitter flavors but once I add bentonite and they clear those odd flavors disappear. Why is that?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

Bentonite can take some bitter flavonoids and tannin with it. If you are mixing it in pretty aggressively you will also lose a little CO2 which can come off a little harsh on a young wine. I normally notice them to really smooth out between the end of fermentation and the time they are crystal clear which is usually a few months.

[@DavidAbraham504]

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel thank you.

[@claudedesnoyers8545]

After you racked your wine, don't you degass your wine before you let it clear up?

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

I don't. With white wines I normally just lightly degas at the time of bottling. The dissolved CO2 adds another layer of protection in the carboy. If I bottle pretty young (3mo) it will need a little more degassing, where as you get up to 6mo or more it may not need it at all. I am willing to leave a hair more dissolved CO2 in a white wine in the bottle also since they are served cool or cold. Warmer liquids don't hold CO2 well and colder will dissolve it readily. So if it goes into the bottle at 55 or 60F and it were drank a little warmer, you may notice a little CO2 escaping, but if it were drank cool like 35 or 40F it will remain trapped with no signs of fizz unless it is really over saturated.

[@dusshan1]

Hello, could you or someone else please share a word of advice? i have a carboy (50 liters) of red wine. The must was sitting for a week on the peel, at the beginning we've added the yeast for blue grapes varieties mixed according to the instructions. it was mixed once every day during these 7 days - peels submerged and mixed. Then after that week it was pressed during a sunny day and we discarded small portion of the initial batch (lots of sediment and seeds). the sugar content was low (19NM) so we added a bit of sugar piece by piece during the pressing process(total of 1kg). Afterwards the liquid was moved to a carboy with an airlock and it is sitting in a heated basement now for a total of 14 days. the problem is that it is not bubbling at all. What could be causing this and how to force it back to fermenting/bubbling? During the pressing process we collected the pressed juice (filtered using sieve) inside a carboy and it looked to be nice and active. could i somehow cause a temperature shock there? another thing that crosses my mind is that fermentation is almost done? when i mix the carboy bubble level goes uneven again in the airlock but no bubbling at all. i think it is too early for the fermentation to complete after just 14 days no? the juice is not topped up. there is a gap just like in the carboy shown on this video. the basement could be colder at first before we turned on heating but nothing too drastic. say 15-20 degrees centigrade.. walls have wooden tiles.. now since the heating is on the rooms gets warm as in our house - at LEAST 20C and more. Thanks!

[@Mosamania]

What’s the starting gravity and the final gravity?

[@jimdent351]

You really would need to know what the starting gravity is, and the final gravity. Having added sugar the way you did changes the overall gravity of your must so that changes things again. The type of yeast is also important. Yeast can only handle so much alcohol before they give up, so the added sugar might have been too much for the yeast. Did you use a hydrometer to get a starting and final gravity? There could be other factors that you aren't considering as well. Are you sure that your airlock has a good seal? The CO2 could be escaping around a bad seal. I had a wine once that seemed to give up at 1.000 gravity, and I thought that I was going to have to live with the residual sugar that the yeast gave up on. Over the period of a few months, however, the yeast continued to work and took the gravity to a final 0.995.

[@dusshan1]

Hello fellow winemakers. I did open my carboy for the very first time today after 20 days from pressing. The hydrometer just sunk all the way in so I assume there is no more sugar. (?). My friend told me that maybe the fermentation went too rapidly because the wine didn't bubble since day 2.. I've added the yeast when the grapes was sitting on the peel on day one just like Rick did in one of his videos here. although it doesn't smell too bad it is more on the fruity side I can smell maybe tiny portion of sulfur. It tastes really sour like a lemon juice with wine ending. Seems like there is already a sediment of yeast on the bottom. What do you suggest? Thanks each one of you!

[@jimdent351]

@@dusshan1 You say that "the hydrometer just sank so I assume...". Never assume. You need to know what the reading was on the hydrometer. Was it below 1.000? Ideally you want the hydrometer to read less than 0.996, and you want the same reading over multiple days. From my experience, my wines always ferment out to 0.995, and I had one rare occasion that it finished at 0.992. It's very important that it's done, or it come back to life and ferment in the bottle a little more on you, and yes I've had that happen. If you have a surfer smell coming off your wine then you need to rack it off the gross lees immediately, or your wine could become ruined.

[@dusshan1]

@@jimdent351 Hi Jim, thanks very much for the reply. My hydrometer just sunk, i could not read any value, it is out of scale but if 1.0 in specific gravity scale means 0 NM it was definitely below 1.0 I measure the wine in a plastic cylinder and hydrometer just sunk to the very bottom. Thanks for the advice about racking going to do it asap and keep you posted. hopefully no difficult adjustments need to be made as i have no experience with these so far. also my equipment is so far limited to hydrometer and just bought a refractometer today. meanwhile i am trying to soak as much theoretical information as possible :)

[@helmutsasse5199]

He3lmut should say thumb

[@DavidAbraham504]

Why white wines don’t like malolactic fermentation? I though all wines go to malolactic fermentation.

[@TheHomeWinemakingChannel]

Most crisp whites do not go through MLF. Malic acid can seem harsh in a high tannin wine but in a low tannin white wine it can present crisp, refreshing fruit character. There are some white wines like chardonnay that frequently undergo MLF but most don't. The majority of red wines do undergo MLF.

[@DavidAbraham504]

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel in white wine MLF just doesn’t ocurre or the wine maker has to do something to prevent it? I made a fruit wine last year and I keep one bottle that I drank some time ago. The flavor was way much better that the first time I drank it. I was under the impression that the change in flavor was because MLF.

[@SirWussiePants]

@@DavidAbraham504 It depends on how much malic acid is available but you can add something like lysosome to stop MLF from occurring.

[@DavidAbraham504]

@@SirWussiePants thank you Larry. I don’t know if I want that. I have notice that fruit white wines gets much better in time if that is because MLF then I don’t want to prevent it.

[@pigzaj2]

@@DavidAbraham504 You have to be careful because if you plan on having any residual sugar in your white/fruit wine. If you add potassium sorbate as advised in this video and the wine has undergone MLF, you will notice that "hair salon perm" smell when you take a whiff after opening a bottle. Definitely not a good smell. I play it safe with slightly higher sulfite numbers to make sure my sweet whites do not go through MLF.

[@brett327]

Holy shit, that's a ton of sugar.