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BACKUP WINE
The Blog

Stories from the workbench

Wine, friendship, beer (Russ's department), and the occasional life lesson learned the hard way at 1 a.m. on bottling night.

A clean basement workshop sink with a glass carboy draining upside down, a spray bottle of sanitizer, a soft brush, clean wine bottles, and rubber gloves drying nearby

May 13, 2026 · 8 min read

How to clean, de-label, and sanitize wine bottles for bottling day

You don't need to buy bottles. You need an empty bathtub, a box of OxiClean Free, and a Saturday. Here's the soak-and-strip ritual we learned from Mark — and the modern updates that make it easier.

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Inside Vine to Wine of Northville: the 'Vine 2 Wine Custom Winery' banner above the sinks and bottling station, stainless prep counter, bottle tree, and shelves of customer-finished bottles

May 13, 2026 · 6 min read

Making wine with Mark at Vine to Wine

Before there was a basement carboy, there was a shop in Northville where the owner did the hard part and we showed up with thirty bottles, a couple of friends, and an empty Saturday night.

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Todd holding a Splash Wines shipping box on his shoulder in front of a row of bottles, with the WineClubGroup logo overlaid — a published wineclubgroup.com review

May 13, 2026 · 7 min read

What 13 years of reviewing wine clubs taught us about making wine

I've been reviewing wine-of-the-month clubs since 2012. Then we started making wine. Here's what tasting a thousand-plus club bottles taught us that no kit instruction sheet ever will.

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A single glass of red wine on a wooden table next to an open notebook with handwritten research notes

May 13, 2026 · 14 min read

Sulfites, headaches, and the case for home-made wine

Almost everyone blames sulfites for their wine headache. The science doesn't. Here's what 40 years of research actually says — and why making your own wine still ends up in a better place for sensitive drinkers.

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Russ (left) and Todd (right, with boutonnière) in tuxedos at Todd's 2021 wedding, warm editorial parchment tone

December 20, 2025 · 8 min read

What 40 years of friendship tastes like

It tastes like a slightly-too-warm Cabernet, in a mismatched glass, on a porch, in October.

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A homemade wine bottle wrapped in brown kraft paper and twine with a blue tape label, on a wooden porch with autumn leaves.

December 8, 2025 · 4 min read

Gifting homemade wine without being weird about it

Hand it over, say what's in it, and walk away. Do not, under any circumstances, hover.

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Two wine bottles side by side on a rustic wooden table — one homemade with a blue painters tape label that reads BACKUP WINE in sharpie, the other a glossy mass-market grocery store bottle

November 25, 2025 · 6 min read

Kit wine vs. grocery store wine: an unfair comparison

One of them you made. The other one you didn't. That changes everything before the first sip.

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Two middle-aged men in flannel shirts unboxing a wine kit on a wooden table in a warm basement workshop, with a glass carboy, a hydrometer in a test jar, yeast packets, and a roll of blue painters tape laid out next to the box

November 18, 2025 · 8 min read

A beginner's honest guide to your first wine kit

What the box doesn't tell you, what we wish we'd known, and the one step nobody should skip.

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Todd (left, in glasses) and Russ smiling side by side at a brick-walled bar, warm editorial parchment tone

November 5, 2025 · 7 min read

How a 10-year-old friendship turned into a wine cellar

We met in fifth grade. Forty-something years later there are carboys in the basement. Here's roughly how that happened.

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A home brewing setup in a warm-lit garage at dusk: stainless brew kettle steaming on a propane burner, glass carboy of amber wort, a bag of hops, scattered grain, and a homemade beer bottle with blue painters tape labeling on a wooden workbench

October 21, 2025 · 6 min read

Russ and his beer phase

The brief period when Russ tried to convert me to home brewing. Spoiler: I am still on team grape.

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Two mismatched wine glasses of red wine on a weathered porch table at golden hour, next to an open dark bottle wrapped with blue painters tape

October 2, 2025 · 6 min read

Why backup wine is the best wine

There is a specific kind of magic in opening a bottle that nobody — including you — had any expectations for.

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A glass of slightly off-dry red wine catching golden hour light on a porch railing, blurred autumn trees in the background

September 30, 2025 · 5 min read

Why we stopped chasing "dry"

For a while we treated residual sugar like a moral failing. Then we grew up a little.

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Russ (left, teal t-shirt) and Todd (right, plaid) bottling their first homemade wine at the kitchen island in 2016

September 14, 2025 · 9 min read

The night we labeled the Cabernet

How a roll of blue painters tape, a sharpie, and Russ's questionable handwriting accidentally became a brand.

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Russ smiling as he pours Cabernet kit juice from a bag-in-box into a primary fermenter — our very first Cabernet, 2016

August 18, 2025 · 6 min read

The first batch we were actually proud of

Batch one through four taught us things. Batch five taught us we might actually be able to do this.

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Top-down flat lay of three small piles on a wooden workbench: oak chips on the left, oak cubes in the middle, and a single oak spiral on the right

August 4, 2025 · 6 min read

Oak chips, oak cubes, oak spirals: a very calm argument

Russ has opinions. I have different opinions. The wine, frankly, has the final word.

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An open bottle of homemade red wine and a half-full glass on a worn kitchen counter on a quiet weeknight.

July 22, 2025 · 5 min read

The case for making wine you actually want to drink

Don't make a varietal because it's impressive. Make the one you'd open on a Tuesday.

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Russ stirring the primary fermenter with a long spoon while topping up water on our first Cabernet batch, 2016

July 9, 2025 · 4 min read

Things Russ has said while stirring a primary fermenter

A running list. Most of them are unprintable. The printable ones are still pretty good.

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A clean basement workshop sink with a glass carboy draining upside down, a spray bottle of sanitizer, a soft brush, clean wine bottles, and rubber gloves drying nearby

June 22, 2025 · 6 min read

Sanitization, or: the most boring thing that will save your wine

Nobody got into home winemaking because they love cleaning. And yet. Here we are. Cleaning.

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Four friends at a small kitchen table with mismatched chairs, a simple pasta dish, and open bottles of homemade red wine with blue tape labels.

June 8, 2025 · 5 min read

Backup wine and the art of the low-stakes dinner party

The best dinner parties happen when nobody — including the host — is trying to impress anyone.

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Russ leaning over a red floor corker on the kitchen tile, pressing a cork into a bottle of homemade wine on bottling day

May 30, 2025 · 7 min read

Bottling day: what nobody tells you about corks

Corks are small. Corks are simple. Corks will absolutely humble you on a Saturday afternoon.

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Cabernet being racked by siphon from a full glass carboy on the counter down to a smaller carboy on the floor, Russ working in the background

April 14, 2025 · 5 min read

Racking for people who have never racked anything

A siphon, a bucket, gravity, and the deep satisfaction of moving wine from one container to another.

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Close-up of a glass hydrometer floating in a tall test cylinder of amber wine must on a wooden workbench, scale visible at the meniscus

March 26, 2025 · 6 min read

How to read a hydrometer without crying

It's a glass stick. It floats. It tells the truth. We can work with this.

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Top-down flat lay of five essential home winemaking tools on a wooden workbench: an auto-siphon, a floor corker, a digital scale, a wine thief, and a heavy-duty bottle brush

February 11, 2025 · 7 min read

The five tools we wish we had bought on day one

Skip the gimmicks. These five things would have saved us batches one through three.

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An overhead Thanksgiving table with a slightly overdone turkey, side dishes, and two open bottles of homemade red wine with blue tape labels.

November 29, 2024 · 6 min read

The Thanksgiving the Merlot saved

The turkey was a situation. The gravy was a crime scene. The Merlot held the line.

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