Six Pack of WSU Students Team Up to Make Premium Wines A handful of juniors and seniors majoring in viticulture and enology at WSU Tri-Cities are engaged in a winemaking project that takes them from the vineyard to the winery and beyond. Their capstone course involves every aspect of the winemaking process, said Thomas Henick-Kling, […]
New Research Busts Tannin Additions Myth, Sparks Trans-Pacific Collaboration If you’re using tannin additions in your red winemaking process, you may well be wasting your money, according to recently published research by Washington State University enologist Jim Harbertson and Australian wine and grape researcher Mark Downey, a lead researcher at Victoria’s Department of Primary Industries. […]
Weighing the Cost of an Ounce of Prevention The gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair began when a highly respected winemaker at a well-known winery tasted the very expensive Cabernet Sauvingon as it went to barrel. “The wine had soap bubbles and smelled ‘fishy’,” said Jim Harbertson, author of a chapter in Winemaking Problems […]
Henick-Kling Meets the State WSU V&E director Thomas Henick-Kling listens as West Side winemakers describe their operations during a meeting at WSU’s Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center in Mount Vernon. The new director of WSU’s Viticulture and Enology Program, Thomas Henick-Kling, is just completing a whirlwind tour of the state to get better acquainted […]
King of the Yeasts Partnering with the commercial yeast producer Lallemand, WSU food scientist Charlie Edwards and his colleagues formulated strains of yeast that can stand up to high-sugar grape musts. Top: Lallemand products. Bottom: yeast cells. Where does a great glass of wine get its start? In the vineyard, certainly, as the foundation for […]
WSU Opens Research Winery Top: Ringer (L) and Harbertson designed the new research winery in order to address questions of concern to the Washington wine industry. Middle: Harbertson plucks grapes for later chemical analysis. Bottom: Harbertson empties a box of chardonnary grapes into a press, starting the first batch of white wine in the new […]
Tantalyzing Tannins Enologist James Harbertson and his colleagues have set a new standard for tannin analysis in wine. Read Harbertson et al.’s paper in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture at http://tinyurl.com/44vdx8. WSU enologist James Harbertson and his colleagues have sampled 1,300 red wines, half of them from Washington. The research team didn’t swirl, […]
Winemaking Using Maritime Grapes Kerry Ringer, WSU Extension enologist and assistant professor of food science, leads a basic winemaking workshop in Mount Vernon on June 30. For more information, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/3uzwkp If you are a westside winemaker, in the early phases of opening a winery, planning to open a winery, or just dreaming about […]
Basic Winemaking Using Maritime Grapes Upcoming workshop teaches participants basic winemaking using westside Washington grapes. If you are a westside winemaker, in the early phases of opening a winery, planning to open a winery, or just dreaming about it, Washington State University Extension has a workshop for you. The all-day beginner’s workshop on winemaking is […]