Wine

Name: Wine
Author: Acustica Audio

by Acustica Audio · Saturation · Mastering finalizer and stereo enhancer

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Wine is a mastering finalizer that combines analog preamp color with Euphonic stereo enhancement, true-peak control and dithering.

It includes Wine, the lighter Fire The Blend and Wine EQ; no price was shown on the product page.

Best for: Mastering, Mix Bus. Genres: all genres.

Keywords: mastering, enhancement, true-peak, bus processing, mix bus, wide, analog-sounding, finishing touch, full mix, metering, oversampling, classic, hardware emulation, inspired by, mid/side, resizable UI, simple, single-band.

What it does

Wine is an Acustica mastering finaliser and stereo enhancer for the master bus. The developer says it was built to bring the "classic analog tone" into the final stage of a mix.

Analog Plus: an algorithm for dynamic preamp enhancement, part of a chain that also emulates analog compression and EQ.
Euphonic stereo: a stereo field enhancement algorithm that changes how wide and open the stereo image feels.
True peak mode: prevents inter-sample peaks at the output.
Dithering: eight dither modes and five bit-depth options for preparing the final file.
Quality: Hyper 3 technology, an anti-aliasing algorithm and up to 8x oversampling.
Metering and monitoring: the Aria engine with real-time metering, plus Delta, LR, Mid and Side listening modes.
Workflow: a resizable GUI and presets.

Three plugins come in the bundle:

Wine: the full version with every section.
Fire The Blend: a streamlined, lighter version in the style of Acustica's Fire series.
Wine EQ: just the EQ, filters and preamp, with lower CPU use.

Wine was released in May 2024 with an introductory price, and no demo was mentioned.

Source: Acustica Audio product page

When to use it

Wine is the better pick when you want subtle analog colour, width and output prep in one plugin at the very end of the chain. Compared with the Black Box Analog Design HG-2, it is gentler and adds stereo enhancement, true-peak control and dithering, but it is not built for heavy harmonic drive. It is more focused than Saturation Knob, which is a single drive control with no output tools. Unlike Ozone 12, it has no assistant, multiband dynamics or loudness-target workflow, and its true-peak mode is not a replacement for a dedicated limiter like Pro-L 2.

Best for: final colour and stereo width on the master bus, then dithering for export.
Genres: any; it suits pop, electronic and acoustic masters that need a little analog sheen.
Look elsewhere if: you need loudness limiting (Pro-L 2), full mastering with metering and assistants (Ozone 12), or strong saturation (HG-2 or Decapitator).
Tip: use Wine EQ instead of the full plugin when you only need the tone and want to save CPU.

Where to buy

Acustica Audio: see store

Tutorials and reviews

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