Inside Winemaking - the art and science of growing grapes and crafting wine

This episode is the second in the chemistry series and focuses on the acidity elements of pH and TA ( Ep. 56 was on sugar and alcohol ).  Dave Nakaji, winemaker for Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery, came on the podcast to discuss how he integrates pH and TA as parameters to guide his decision-making all the way through from grapes to finished wine.  Beyond his experience with wine, Dave has a PhD i...

This is the first episode of Inside Winemaking to leave the West Coast and learn about winemaking in Virginia.  Tyler Henley is the winemaker for Boxwood Estate and has been making wine in Virginia for four years, after an extensive background working at wineries in California and Chile.  Tyler and I worked together at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars ten years ago.  Thankfully we've kept in touch and wer...

See the link below for the $100 gift card to sign up and shop Shortly after the fires in northern California during the harvest of 2017, Naked Wines put together one of the coolest fire recovery fundraisers that I came across.  They have raised $832K as of January, 2018, and drawn support from their members worldwide.  That was the final impetus I needed to contact Naked and ask for an interview. ...

This episode covers my recent journey through the creation of a new wine.  A pink wine.  From grapes to finished wine that is almost bottle-ready three months later, this foray into rose has been an exciting new winemaking challenge.  As an experiment I recorded this solo episode while driving home from work.  Because I'm a captive in the car during the recording, it's part harvest chronology and...

As VP of Operations for White Labs in San Diego Neva Parker has extensive experience with the full spectrum of yeast that are cultured and available for the brewing industry.  While most known for their brewing yeast, White Labs also provides yeast and bacterial strains for producers of wine, sake, kombucha, and craft spirits.  Our conversation covers Neva's entry into yeast production, the array...

As a wine lover and fan of podcasts I took the opportunity to record an episode with Chappy Cottrell, who is the man in charge of Cru Podcast.  Chappy recently moved to Healdsburg to work the 2017 harvest and is beginning a new position as a sommelier and wine buyer at the esteemed restaurant and resort that is Cavallo Point (at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge).  Our conversation ranges from Ch...

This episode features the return of Ann Reynolds, who runs Wine Compliance Alliance, and was on the podcast previously in Episode 45.  As I was busy with grapes and harvest during the month of October, I asked Ann to record a solo episode and discuss an outline navigating the federal and California state winery permitting processes. Ann has vast experience in helping clients obtain both Alternatin...

This episode features John Caldwell, the maverick, the grape-grower, the vine-smuggler, the clonal researcher, the winemaker, and the story-teller.  John didn't plan to start his own winery, and neither did he plan to plant grapevines on his property in Coombsville when he first bought it.  Today Caldwell Vineyard is a thriving winery and also continues to sell grapes to other wineries.  This epis...

Having grown up on the Cinnabar Winery estate in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Caleb Mosely has worked with grapevines for nearly all his life. In this episode we talk about his upbringing at Cinnabar, school at CalPoly, work at Ridge Vineyards and then his vineyard positions in Napa before he moved to his current role as viticulturist with Mike Wolfe Vineyard Services.  We cover a ton of technical ge...

As the fourth generation in the Musto family business, Christina Musto is on this episode of the podcast to talk about what Musto Wine Grape Company has available for home and commercial winemakers in New England and to discuss her role as a founding member of Women Winemakers of Connecticut.  Musto is the largest and oldest wine grape and juice distributor in New England, with their own vineyards...

Hailing from the Pisoni family that helped put Santa Lucia Highlands on the winemaking map in California, Jeff Pisoni shares the story of his family's relationship with farming and the development of Gary's, Pisoni, and Soberanes, which supply grapes to numerous top end wineries across the state.  Recounting clandestine attempts his father, Gary Pisoni, undertook to find water on the family ranch,...

This episode is the first in a series of solo podcasts where I present my assessment of the most critical chemical analyses a winemaker needs to understand.  It's a peek inside the chaotic jungle that is my harvest-season brain and the attempts to organize sugar's conversion to alcohol during harvest, when winemaking decisions are most critical.  If there was a straight-forward and precise working...

In the basement of the world's cutest micro-winery, I met with Mark Porembsky to talk about his work there making not only the wine for Anomaly Vineyards, but also for his own brand, Zeitgeist Cellars.   Our conversation covers: Mark's favorite winemaking tool The mentors that Mark  had when learning to make wine How Mark and his wife, also a winemaker, harness "creative conflict" in their blendin...

Three years after my first podcast with Mike Dunn, he helped me rope Randy Dunn into a podcast so that we could learn more about old-school Napa winemaking and the stories from a place that had far less glitz than exists today.  Not one to seek the spotlight, Randy has consistently turned out iconic mountain Cabernets, which have brought the spotlight up to their otherwise quiet ranch on Howell Mo...

I had a great time talking with Rebekah Wineburg, who has made worked at some of the top wineries in the world and is currently the winemaker at Quintessa in Napa Valley.  Rebekah told me her background and then the full history on Quintessa including the key elements she uses to describe the wine, "Elegance, harmony, and layers."   Our conversation covers a whole range and vineyard and winery top...

As Vice President and General Manager at Cliff Lede Family Wines Remi Cohen oversees the grapegrowing and winemaking for the Cliff Lede wines in Napa and the FEL wines from Anderson Valley.  In this episode Remi tells of her job in entomology that led to enrollment to study viticulture at UCDavis.  From there she quickly rose through the vineyard ranks at Napa wineries and farming companies, such...

Viticulturist and vineyard guru, Garrett Buckland, returns to the Inside Winemaking Podcast to discuss organic farming as it applies to winegrapes.  Garrett has a wealth of vineyard experience, having spent his entire life farming grapes in Napa.  He is one of the rare farming gems who also understands winemaking and is immersed in the creation of some of Napa Valley's leading wines.  We spend the...

"California terrior through the lens of Zinfandel."  As a winemaker sourcing Zinfandel vineyards, from 12 counties throughout California Tegan Passalacqua has an unrivaled view of this grape's potential in his role at Turley Wine Cellars.  Tegan and his wife also have their own small brand, Sandlands Wines, which is often known for its Chenin blanc, but is also producing lesser-known varieties suc...

Spanning wine regions in Israel, California, Walla Walla, and Chile winemaker, Maayan Koschitzky, has accumulated more winemaking experience in ten years than many enologists would in an entire career.  Our conversation in this episode explores the practices of Kosher winemaking, especially from Maayan's early career in Israel.  After moving the the US to take winery jobs at Screaming Eagle and Da...

In this episode I take questions submitted from listeners and give my best advice.  Winemaking is like cooking in that there is rarely a discreet best answer, so each response is to be taken with a grain of salt.  There's more than one way to ferment a grape.  When appropriate I explain how you might scale up or down given the size of winery involved.   Questions in this episode about how to make...

Tyler Thomas, who is the director of winemaking at Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards, was the guest on the very popular Episode: 35 of The Inside Winemaking Podcast.  In this episode Tyler returns in a solo format to give color to his thoughts on what it means to be a winemaker and then results from some of the vineyard and winery trials that he has taken on.  There are numerous academic studies of...

Tom Rinaldi I had the privilege to sit down and talk with one of my professional heroes, one of the most requested winemakers for this podcast, Tom Rinaldi.  After a long career including building the Duckhorn brand from the ground starting in 1978, Tom then went on to launch and direct the Provenance and Hewitt brands with the Chalone group.  Tom is now retired from full-time work, but continues...

ANN REYNOLDS, THE INSIDE STORY OF A WINE LABEL This episode features author, Ann Reynolds, and her book The Inside Story of a Wine Label .  Ann's business, Wine Compliance Alliance, is focused resource on navigating the sea of the TTB's federal regulations for everything from grapes to bottling.  Ann's book details all of the regulated items on a wine label from brand name, alcohol content, to the...

This episode features Philippe Melka, one of the most renowned winemakers in California.  Joining us is Meghan Zoebeck, who is one of the winemakers that make up the small Atelier Melka workshop, which is responsible for the consultation to some of Napa's leading wineries.  I have received many requests for a discussion of managing native fermentations and I felt Philippe's experience would be ide...

Austin Peterson decided that he wanted to become a winemaker his father, also a winemaker, tried talking him out of it.  Winemaking may not be the most lucrative career, but it is rife with people choosing passion over payment.  Austin, now winemaker at Ovid Vineyards in Napa's Pritchard Hill, brings a relentless passion to the vineyard and winemaking processes at Ovid Vineyards.   Austin and the...