Blending This is the mixing of ingredients or finished wines to achieve the best possible product. From inception to drinking the aim must be the highest standard, and it is often only by blending that this is possible. (Whether the mixing of grapes or two wines, it is still blending.) Many of the table wines imported from France are the result of blending; and don't forget that champagne is nearly always a blended wine.  

Blending Wines As with any blending, the object is to turn a poor wine into a good one. The basic rule with wines is easier than the exercise û select the opposite fault in a second wine, mix the two and the result should be superior, i.e., a highly astringent wine requires blending with a wine low in tannin. By careful additions (measured) of the low tannin wine, a balance is achieved. Whatever the fault in the wine, the same principle applies. 

Blue-Fining entails the use of potassium ferrocyanide to remove iron hazes from wine. As ferrocyanide and the compound it forms with iron 'ferricyanide' are highly poisonous, it is NOT an amateur technique.

Body A tasting term to describe the feel of the wine in the mouth. Wines are usually described as being either full, medium or light bodied.

Body and Bananas See Bananas.

Boiling for Extraction See Extraction by Boiling.

Boiling for Vaporization Some vegetables contain volatile compounds which, if not driven off by boiling, will spoil the bouquet and flavor of a wine

Boiling Fruit is limited to dried fruit, and this is to extract as much sugar as possible and to help sterilization.

Bottle Fermentation Any fermentation taking place in the bottle. (a) Champagne In order to get the bubbles into the bottle and the wine a second fermentation is required. After the wine has fermented to dryness it is blended, sugar added together with a special champagne yeast, and it is fermented in the bottle. (b) Malo-Lactic If not inhibited by sulphite or too high an alcohol content a wine with a high malic acid content may, if lactobacilli are present, undergo a bottle fermentation whilst converting malic acid to lactic. BUT beware of blown corks. (c) Unwanted will occur if a wine is bottled before fermentation is finished with resulting possibilities of, if lucky, a mess with a blown cork, or, at worst, a burst bottle and a worse mess. Therefore, do not bottle until certain fermentation is finished.

Bottle Racks are designed for bottles to lie on their side with a small amount of wine in contact with the cork. This prevents drying of the cork which, if it were to occur, would result in shrinkage of the cork and seepage of the wine, with a possibly corked wine. Fortified wines are usually stored upright as alcohol gradually destroys cork. Table wines are safe from this due to their lower alcohol content.

Bottle Sealing Commercial wine bottles have a plastic capsule which effectively protects a wine from acetification should drying of the cork occur.

Bottle Sickness During bottling it is inevitable that a wine will absorb oxygen and this, unless sulphite is used, will result in the formation of acetaldehyde. The presence of this gives the wine a flat taste and requires as least two or three weeks to disappear.

Bottle Stink Wines sulphited at bottling time often have a marked smell or stink of sulfur dioxide on opening. This is usually only short lived, but may be so strong as to put off completely the prospective drinker. So, sulphite with care at this time; never more than 50 ppm.

Bottles come in many shapes, sizes and colors, and some wines have their own distinctive type of bottle. These range from the Methuselah (a bottle equal to 8 normal bottles of Champagne) to the miniature liqueur bottles, each with its particular shape.  See Bottling

Bottling The process of transferring the wine from bulk containers to the bottle and sealing it from the air. Like all steps in winemaking, it is to be undertaken with care and strict attention to hygiene. See Bottling

Bottling Technique The act of transferring wine from one container to another is easy. However, when bottling, care is required to prevent access of oxygen to the wine. Without special equipment involving the use of nitrogen or carbon dioxide this is not possible, but is can be minimized by avoiding splashing and running the wine down the side of the bottle coupled with the use of an anti-oxidant.

Breathing After drawing the cork from red wines, they should (after decanting if required), be allowed to stand for at least 30 minutes without a stopper. During this time oxygen can react with the wine to mellow it prior to drinking.

Brilliance A term used to describe the clarify of a wine which may vary from cloudy to brilliant or star bright (a completely clear wine free from deposit or floating debris).

Brix A scale used instead of specific gravity on the continent. If the degrees Brix are multiplied by 4, the S.G. is obtained approximately.

Brown Sugar is a form of pure sugar containing molasses, hence its color. It is usually of limited value in wine as it tends to confer a caramel taste and to darken the wine.

Brut A French word to denote extra dryness, usually in a champagne.

Bucket An inexpensive everyday appliance (food-grade plastic only) as useful in winemaking as in the kitchen. The most useful for the winemaker is one of 3 or 6 gallons capacity with a loose-fitting lid, which is valuable in preparing musts or in conducting pulp fermentation.  See Vintner-s Deluxe Starter Kit 

Buffer Solution is a mixture of a weak acid and its salt, which will tend to minimize a change in pH (by addition of an acid or alkali) by either forming more salt if acid is added, or forming more acid if an alkali is added. A wine is a very complex example of a buffer. It is because of its buffering action that adding a lot of acid to a wine, while increasing the acidity markedly, will only raise the pH slightly. Hence the need, ideally, for measuring both the pH and the acidity of a wine.

Bulk Maturing Wines stored in large containers tend to mature more slowly, which is an ideal situation for quality. It is, however, especially important to chose the size of cask carefully that is to be used for white wines, due to possible oxidation of the wine. The volume of a cask and its surface area are the two factors which determine the rate of entry of air and, if this is too great, the contents will, if let in cask too long, become oxidized. Even with a 7 gallon cask, a white wine will not stand more than 2-3 months in cask, while a red wine may continue to improve for many years.

Burette An accurately calibrated tube used in titration. There is usually a tap to regulate liquid flow. The burette is filled to the zero mark with alkali which slowly added to the wine until the end point is reached, when the amount of alkali used is read off from the scale.

Burgundy Yeast One of the many pure strains of yeast available to the amateur. It is particularly suitable for dry wines made from red fruit.

Butyl Alcohol One of the higher alcohols formed in small amounts during fermentation. Like other higher alcohols, it aids flavor and bouquet. In more than trace amounts, it is a powerful inhibitor of yeast.

Butyric Acid is produced by Bacillus Butyricus, one of the spoilage organisms, and will cause the wine to smell of rancid butter. Prevention is by hygiene, and the cure, if this form of spoilage occurs, is by disposal of the wine.

By-Products of Fermentation are substances produced by the reactions taking place in the must that result in compounds present in the finished wine other than ethanol. These include succinic, lactic and acetic acids; glycerin, acetaldehyde, fusel oils and the higher alcohols.

See Plastic, Toxic.

Carbon Used in its pure form charcoal it is a useful fining agent or either lightening an over-dark wine or for removing taints. It is a substance which requires very careful trial finings before scale use, since over-use will result in a colorless, flavorless wine. It is used to this end in the manufacture of vodka and neutral spirits.

Carbon Cycle All organic material in nature circulates from the earth to animals and/or man and back to the soil. Carbon is only slightly different in that is also present in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and is utilized for plant photosynthesis. This recycling of carbon is the carbon cycle, and winemaking plays its part in the release of carbon dioxide from sugar while producing alcohol.