Frankston Amateur Winemakers Guild is a group of like minded individuals, who produce home-made wines for their personal consumption and to share with their friends and family.
We currently have about 100 members on the Mornington Peninsula, south eastern suburbs and as far away as Gippsland & NSW. New members welcomed!
The Guild encourages the responsible production and consumption of alcohol.
We aim to produce wines which are of high quality with minimal preservatives/additives. The varieties of wine produced from fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers and other ingredients are not readily available in the commercial market. Grape wine varieties are also produced and we can source various grapes at vintage time.
One of the main advantages of Guild membership and meetings, is the ability to gain help or advice
as wines are made and to share our winemaking experiences and the odd bottle of wine.
By entering winemaking competitions you can hone your winemaking skills by having your wine judged by professional wine makers and wine judges.
You can compare your wines at shows to other winemakers wines and possibly ask them how they achieved
their high score and flavour profile.
We meet on the second Tuesday of each month at 7.30pm
FAWG HAS RELOCATED OUR MEETING PLACE TO MOOROODUC HALL, MOOROODUC.
If you would like an article listed or researched please contact
the webmaster – webmaster@fawg.org.au
Articles/Links to be placed here on demand, or when available, as per
examples below.
A Standard Alcoholic Drink
The following article link gives you the formula to calculate the number of
standard drinks in your bottle or glass of wine
So
what is a standard alcoholic drink article
Sparkling Wine
Arthur Stone and Chris Myers article on how to make sparkling wine
Make
SparklingWine article
Link to 'A review of Methode Champenoise Production'
(as quoted by Caroline Hangay at meeting 13/11/2012)
http://www.apps.fst.vt.edu/extension/enology/downloads/463-017.pdf
Specific Gravity
At various times guild members have asked for clarification on various Specific
Gravity charts that have been cited. The following article link provides
a relatively simple explanation of the potential variation in the charts.
This article is copyright to Ben Rotter of www.brsquared.org/wine
SG TABLE.pdf
How To Remove A Cork From Inside A Wine Bottle
Watch a YouTube video of how to do it
It's a bit of fun!
You can also look at a few more fun bottle tricks if you follow the links
Click Here
Plants Not To Make Wine Fron
The article below is reprinted from Choice Magazine - April 1983
If you have a better reference, please contact the webmaster
Pretty
but Dangerous
Article
from NSW Dept Primary Industries
Poisonous Plants of Australia
The Australian National Botanic Gardens website has a fairly extensive list
of poisonous plans of australia
www.cpbr.gov.au/poison-plants/index.html
Easy Acid Adjustment Method For Wine
The formula provided allows for quick calculation of acid addition for your
bulk wine
Tartaric
Acid Solution for Wine Acid Adjustment.pdf
Sulphite Solution to Substitute for Campden Tablets
Make up a 10% solution of Sodium or Potassium Metabisulphite.
(e.g. 10g of SMS/PMS per 100 ml of water)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) of this solution is equivalent to 1 Campden Tablet
Correcting Hazes In Wine
Article by Arthur Stone - Click on link below
Hazes
in Your Wine? Here's What to Do
Flaws & Faults In Wines
Article by Chris Myers - Click on link below
Flaws
and Faults in Wine_Sept_2011.pdf
Download WINECALC
Michiel Pesgens WineCalc 2.4
From The Home Winemaking Page
Click Here
Access Winemaker Magazine Sulphite Calculator
Click Here
By David Wood
Well now that we have reached the chilly part of the year, what do you plan to do over the next few weeks or months? My Briars calendar indicates that for those members with vines planted, we need to consider the best time to prune and tidy up the vineyard ready for the new spring growth of the vines (and the weeds). We also needed to source some replacement vines for those that have succumbed to the Eutypa disease, which is
present in the vineyard (thanks to Steve Brown for the new vines).
Thanks to lockdown restrictions, pruning etc. may be delayed again this year? Last year we had a window of opportunity to prune between lockdown periods, not sure how it will work out this year.
What else is on the list to do over winter? My own list includes:
- Use up fruit and veg in the freezer for either wine or preserves.
- Rack-off demijohns of fruit wines, ready to back sweeten, prior to bottling.
- Keep wines warm if possible, to complete fermentation (heat pad, electric blanket?)
- Towards the start of spring, once the weather has started to warm up, check progress of MLF in my Cabernet. Hopefully the Sentia Malic acid test strips will be
- available by then.
- Sort out the cellared wines in my shed and inside in the wine rack.
- Rearrange the shed to make access and handling of demijohns easier.
- Prune my fruit trees and thin out self-sown fennel, so that it does not take over the backyard.
- Think bout grafting some new varieties onto my fruit trees.
- Maybe cold smoke some cheese and make some preserved meat such as salami, bresaola, turkey leg ham or pork belly.
