The Wine Maker's Toy Store®

Bringing family and friends together...One sip at a time!

Welcome to Pressing News, the monthly newsletter published by Fine Vine Wines, LLC, designed exclusively to assist the home vintner in the pursuit of their hobby!

THIS MONTH ON THE VINE!

WELCOME

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to Fine Vine Wines, LLC, "The Wine Maker's Toy Store". Whether you need home wine making or home brewing products or just need information, we are here to serve you. I want to extend my thanks again for making The Wine Maker's Toy Store your home for your wine making and beer brewing needs. It continues to be my hope that every time you visit our web site or retail store, you find something of value.

As a reminder, we continue to add products and content to the web site; therefore, if you have any special requests, please let us know. We like to hear what you have to say about our site, our products and/or our customer service, good or bad. Please send your comments and/or suggestions to winemaster@finevinewines.com.

WINESTOCK - THE FIRST ANNUAL WINE MAKER'S TOY STORE CONFERENCE

We are proud to announce Dallas' first conference devoted to home wine making. This year we will be honored with the presence of Tim Vandergrift, Technical Services Manager for Winexpert. He is the man behind all of those great Winexpert kits. Tim will share with us the evolution of the wine kit, the sources of the juice and how to properly make a wine kit. Tim will also be available for your questions.

We will start Friday, May 5th at 4 pm with a mixer and wine tasting. The price of admission for the mixer is $10.00 per person or one bottle of your home made wine. The mixer will run until 8 pm.

On Saturday, registration will start at 9 am, with seminars commencing at 10 am. We will have 4 sessions running until 5:30 pm. Lunch will be served, as well as morning and afternoon refreshments. The cost for Saturday is $75.00 if you register before April 21, 2006 and $100.00, after that date. This price includes lunch. In addition, when you show up, you will get a $50.00 gift certificate for use in the store or on the web.

We will have lots of door prizes and wine making kits and equipment on display.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn about home wine making from one of the masters!

BIRTHDAY CLUB

We now have a Birthday Club for registered users. Log into your account, give us the month and day of your birth (we don't want the year!) and we will send you a coupon to use during the month of your birthday. In order to receive the coupon for the current year, you have to have registered and entered your birthday before the start of the month of your birth as we will send the coupons out at the same time as we send the newsletter.

WEB SITE CHANGES

We just couldn't stand leaving the ordering system alone! I know it has been working well, so why don't I just leave it alone? It's because it can get better. Customers still have trouble with ordering the free labels and getting all of the discounts applied to their orders, so we are going to improve that part of the system. In addition, we are in the process of obtaining better shipping rates with FedEx Ground and, as promised, we want to pass the savings on to you. As a result, we need to modify our system to integrate with FedEx.

We are also changing the color scheme to make the site easier to read. If you encounter any ordering problems or have any comments, please let us know.

CUSTOMER REFFERAL PROGRAM

In case you missed it, we have a customer referral program that provides additional discounts to registered users. We will give you a coupon worth 10% of the first order placed by any person that you refer to our web site. The stipulations are as follows:

That's all you have to do to get another discount from finevinewines.com.

CUSTOMER APPRECIATION PROGRAM - FVW GROWERS CLUB

Please check out our FVW Growers Club. You can get all of the details on our web site, but the bottom line is we want to buy your loyalty! Once you spend $500 with us, you get a 5% discount on everything you buy from us. Find out more on the web site.

UPDATED ONLINE TUTORIAL

We have updated our online tutorial to reflect our new passion with cleaning and sanitizing and to clear up some processes. I would like to personally thank several of our forum members, Masta, Brandst, OilnH2O, pkcook, smurfe, MedPretzel and PolishWineP for there comments and assistance. To see the new tutorial, click here.

FORUM

When you have a question or just want to learn more about wine making, don't forget our forum! We have 375 registered users, including some extremely knowledgeable wine makers with loads of valuable information and willing to assist you in your wine making needs. As of the printing of this newsletter, we have over 18,000 posts. We also have 4 moderators and an administrator. Responses to most posts are made within minutes.

Whether you are an expert or a novice, it is an excellent place to ask questions, exchange ideas and meet other home wine makers. If you haven't logged into the forum, try it sometime. I think you will find it most informative and enjoyable, as well as, a great place to meet fellow wine makers. We are also known to have a contest or two only available to forum members.

FEATURED ARTICLE - CLEANING VERSUS SANITIZING?

As most of you have learned, by now, you spend as much time, if not more time, cleaning and sanitizer, as you do, actually making wine. Cleaning and sanitizing is one of the most important aspects of wine making and if not done properly, will result in bad wine. When done properly, your fruit will have a much better chance of becoming a wonderful wine, instead of a nice bottle of vinegar.

Wine is an interesting creation, as it is what nature wants to do with fruit, which is ferment it! With all of those yeasts (bacteria) floating around, they will attach themselves to fruit and start converting the sugars to alcohol. The bad news is that if this process happens in the presence of oxygen or if the wrong bacterium takes over, the fermented fruit begins to mold. The same thing can happen to your wine, if you do not clean and sanitize everything that touches your wine.

The interesting thing is that the alcohol will kill any bacteria that could harm a human, but it will not necessarily kill all unwanted bacteria. This is where the sanitization aspect comes into play. We want to sanitize to get rid of the unwanted bacteria so we will create a great bottle of wine.

Now that we have established the reason for sanitizing, let's discuss the best way to make sure you have killed all of the bad bacteria. The best way is to CLEAN and SANITIZE. Every wine making expert (Winexpert, WineMaker Magazine, Jack Keller, C.J.J. Berry, et al) will tell you that this is the number one mistake that home wine makers make and you need to differentiate between CLEANING and SANITIZING.

Cleaning is the process of removing all visible dirt and residue. Sanitizing is the process of killing bacteria that could adversely affect your wine. You must clean first as sanitizing dirt and residue will not do you any good. Some people talk about sterilizing, instead of sanitizing, but sterilizing is killing EVERYTHING, which is not necessary. Sanitizing kills all of the bacteria that will harm our wine and it is sufficient for our needs.

Now that we have defined the terms, let discuss which products do what. Peroxygen types (perborates and percarbonates) such as EasyClean, One Step, Straight A and B-Brite and chlorine type (cyanurates and hypochlorite) like C-Brite are cleansers. The manufacturers would like you to consider them as a sanitizer, but none of them put the word "sanitizer" on the product. The manufacture of One Step and Straight A even goes as far to strongly imply their product is a sanitizer, but stops short of the claim as their products are not approved by the FDA as a sanitizer (http://www.ecologiccleansers.com/faq.html). Some people also claim that beach is a sanitizer; however, as with the others, the word "sanitizer" does not appear on the product. As a result, I treat all of these products as cleansers, only.

Sulfites like Sodium Metabisulfite and Potassium Metabisulfite are sanitizers when mixed in the proper ratios. 3 tablespoons of either Sodium or Potassium Metabisulfite mixed with 1 gallon of water will yield a 1.25% sulfite solution, will make an effective sanitizer.

Based on my research, I have concluded that any of the cleansers listed above will probably work MOST of the time; however, there is no guarantee any of them will work EVERY time. I have way too much time, effort and money invested in every batch of wine that I make to take a chance on sanitizing. As a result, below is my recommendation for CLEANING and SANITIZING:

1. Clean all of you wine making equipment, bottles, corks and hands with one of the cleansers above.
2. Rinse everything you cleaned with clean water.
3. Sanitize all of you wine making equipment, bottles, corks and hands with a 1.25% sulfite solution. The recommended minimum contact time is 5 minutes to ascertain that all bacteria have been killed.
4. Allow the sanitized items to drip dry. No rinsing is needed.

I know that a lot of you have only used one of the cleansers listed above and had no problems. I can also say that I have only used cleansers and THOUGHT I was doing a good job, so here is an anecdote. Tonight, I was looking through my wine cellar to determine which bottles I was going to enter into the WineMaker Magazine Competition. During my search, I found a 2002 Australian Chardonnay and I was thrilled! This was one of my very first batches and this wine had a story, as it was my first white wine. I was so excited. It had been stored in my wine cellar for 4 years where it was dark, cool and away from vibration, so I knew it was going to be wonderful. It wasn't! It was not yet spoiled, but well on its way. We threw it out! Since it had been stored properly, the only thing that could have happened was lack of sanitization. Moral of story, SANITIZE!

With all of this being said, I know there will be wine makers that disagree with me: that think I am being way too cautious. To them, all I have to say is one thing. "My job is to educate wine makers to help them make the best possible wine with the highest possibility of success. My way may seem like overkill, but it will work, every time."

Clean and sanitize and you will greatly improve your chances of making that great bottle of wine.

Cheers!

George Cornelius

I am always looking for people to write featured articles and I will give you a $100 gift certificate from Fine Vine Wines if you summit an article that I use in my newsletter. Just send me and when it appears in Pressing News, the gift certificate is yours.

TOYS OF THE MONTH

This month, we have something for everybody, GLASS CARBOYS. I have heard over and over, again, that you can never have enough carboys, so this month we have the 3, 5 and 6 gallon carboys on special for $2.00 off. We even have our most popular combination, the 6-gallon carboy with stopper and airlock on sale for $20.99. With the fresh fruit season just around the corner, now is the time to add to your carboy collection.

This month's special pricing is listed below:

Part Number	Image	Description	Regular Price	Current Price	Order
5154		3-Gallon Glass Carboy	$16.99	$14.99	Order
5156		5-Gallon Glass Carboy	$20.99	$18.99	Order
5158		6-Gallon Glass Carboy	$21.99	$19.99	Order
5158A		6-Gallon Glass Carboy with Twin Bubble Airlock and Mutli-fit Stopper	$23.35	$20.99	Order

NEW PRODUCTS

Winexpert has announced 2 new wine kits, Island Mist Kiwi Pear Sauvignon Blanc and Selection Estate Crushendo Catellina Supertuscan Di Siena. We expect to have the Kiwi in the store in April and the Supertuscan in by the end of May. As soon as they arrive, we will offer some special pricing to allow you to sample these 2 new kits.

To see these new products, as well as, all of the new products added last month, go to our New Products Page.

If you are looking for a product that I do not carry, my primary distributor is LD Carlson and you can see their complete product list at their public catalog. If you find anything you would like me to add, please let me know.

CALL US!

If you have any questions about our products, our service and/or wine making, please call us. We are not Corporate America! We are here to serve you. I bring this up, because a number of my callers apologize for bothering me or using my toll-free line. You are definitely not bothering me and I have a toll-free line so you WILL call me.

Sometimes, I am unable to answer the phone. If you get the voice mail, please leave your name, number, brief message and a best time to call. I will return your call as soon as I can. I now have the Company Line forwarded to my cell phone when I am not in the store. As a result, I am now available almost 24-7. I do need to sleep!

If you don't want to call, just send me an email. I usually answer my email daily. In addition, your emails and/or calls do not have to relate to wine. I will discuss any topic you like, so please remember, I am your resource and I am here for you.

WINE OF THE MONTH

This month we are featuring three completely different wines to make sure we have a special for everyone. The Chamblaise is a semi-dry wine that is ready to drink almost immediately after bottling. The White Merlot is a rose similar to the White Zinfandel, but not quite as sweet. The Washington Riesling is a dry Riesling with loads of flavor. All three come highly recommended.

Please note that my specials have been moving very fast. I have been bringing in extras, but I have not been able to keep up with the demand. As a result, these wines may not ship as fast as normal. The wines listed below are marked down as much as 15%:

Part Number	Image	Description	Brand	Regular Price	Current Price	Order
13170		Chamblaise (Chablis) Crisp, semi-dry wine with a clean, refreshing aftertaste.	Vintners Reserve	$45.99	$39.99	Order
13279		White Merlot Medium pink rose' style wine with luscious berry flavors & aromas with a crisp finish.	Winexpert Selection Premium	$79.99	$69.99	Order
13101		Washington Columbia Valley Riesling Delicate yet complex, Rieslings grown here offer pronounced ripeness while retaining acidity, showing fantastic floral aromas & flavors of peach & apricot, while maintaining a crisp freshness.	Winexpert Selection Estate	$99.99	$89.99	Order

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

We appreciate all of your comments, whether good or bad. To demonstrate our commitment to outstanding customer service, I have created a web page with your feedback. As we receive emails that comment about our service, I will post them on this page.

NEWSLETTER SPECIALS

To reward those of you that take the time to read our newsletter every month, we are adding a newsletter special. We promise to offer an outstanding value each month via this feature and this special pricing will only be available through a link from the current month's newsletter. A link to the newsletter special will appear somewhere in the newsletter.

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