Homebrew wine worthwhile?

[Vrtigo1]

I got into homebrew when I got a kit for Christmas and have a few extract batches under my belt. Unfortunately I only have one other beer drinker in the family so I don't have too many people to share my hobby with and was thinking about taking up winemaking. Although I don't really enjoy wine, I expect I would enjoy the process of making it and have a lot of people in my family that would probably enjoy drinking it.

I know next to nothing about wine, but my wife and mother both like pinot grigio, so I was wondering if someone could chime in with the cost and level of effort that would be involved in producing some of that. As well, what sort of equipment would I need that I wouldn't already have from brewing beer?

 

[Yooper]

You can start with a wine kit, and they make pretty good wine. The only thing you'd need that you may not have is a 6 gallon carboy, and a corker.

For a kit, it's not all that gratifying as you stir it up, and don't do much else. But a kit that costs about $100 will make 30 bottles of really tasty wine. A kit that costs about $75 will make "ok" wine, and a kit that costs about $175 will make excellent wine. With wine kits, you really do get what you pay for.

Making grape wine from grapes IS a ton of work, and takes some know-how and equipment (like a press).

You can also sometimes buy buckets of fresh pressed juice, sometimes frozen, that still requires acid adjustments and pH adjustments, but the juice is already pressed. That's sort of a compromise between a kit, and buying grapes.

I make a lot of "country wines"- those made from other things than grapes like blackberry wine, rhubarb wine, etc. I have several recipes posted on easy to make country wines that people may like. (Recipes are under my avatar in the "recipes" pulldown).

 

[fuelish]

If you have all the homebrewing equipment you need, you should be fine making wine......the biggest investment with wines (or mead) is the downtime, the insufferable waiting...perhaps invest in a few more fermenters. You can't have too many, esPECIALLY when it comes to long-time ferments ....and then there's the bottling issue, whether you're comfortable bottling in beer bottles or want the wine bottle with cork experience. You could spend a lot more on stuff, but if you're making beer, you can just as easily make wine

 

[Jeff180]

If you're making white wines I'd say the kits are definitely worth it. Reds are a maybe. I personally enjoy them but I don't think they taste quite the same as commercial. Either way just stick to high end kits. Among the bigger brands that's Cellar Craft Showcase, Winexpert Eclipse/Selection, or RJ Spagnols Winery/Primeur. Southernhomebrew has 2 of these pretty cheap. I think they're down the street from Daytona.

Here's a rough idea of the additional equipment vs homebrew:

$70 Portuguese floor corker
$30 6 gallon better bottle with stopper
$8 corks (30)
$2 spare Potassium Metabisulphite
$30 De-gasser like wine whip or mix stir
$6 wine thief
$4 hydrometer test jar

And you'll also need 30 wine bottles per kit. Here are sample instructions to give you an idea of the effort
http://www.vinecowine.com/userdocs/CC-6wk-winekit-instructions.pdf

 

[BBBF]

I started getting into wine because my wife can't drink my beer and an Italian grocery store near sells 6 gallon buckets of juice. The whites I've made have been very good and the reds have been alright for table wines. They just lack the complexity you get from the grapes.

If you already have the equipment to make beer, you have what you need to make wine from a kit or bucket of juice. A batch of wine might be more expensive than a batch of beer, but if you break it down to the cost per bottle vs. buying a bottle in the store, it is more reasonable.

 

[Cyclman]

The kits don't make world class wines, but when you look at the value of making your own, for $6 a bottle, it's easily equal to something you'd spend $15 or $20 at the store for.

For wine to drink on a Wed. night, it's fantastic- plus, like homebrew, there's the do-it-yourself pride to it.

 

[trefilov22]

I know nothing about brewing wine, but how do you get 30 bottles out of 6 gallons?

 

[Twerp129]

I second what everyone is saying, great wine comes down to where it is grown and the balance of sugar and acid when it is picked. Wineries spend thousands so grapes can be harvested and processed quickly. A kit is grapes which have been picked at someone's idea of ripeness and has probably already been doctored a bit and of course preserved.

That said, you can make a lovely, easy drinking Pinot Grigio for cheap, but then again you can have one for quite cheap as well from the store. However, the real fun of winemaking is the innovation. Tracking down a half ton of grapes. Calling vineyards, checking ripeness, waking at 4AM to go picking and processing into the night. It's always fun to have a couple barrels of wine tucked away too. You sure make a lot of friends.

 

[Brewmex41]

I know nothing about brewing wine, but how do you get 30 bottles out of 6 gallons?

6 gallons is about 22,600 ml. Divided by 750ml bottles, its about 30.

 

[lukebuz]

Also, figured I'd say you don't need a $70 corker. A $25 "wing" corker is just fine. Even for 30+ bottles. Really. Who needs a giant gizmo taking up floor space? Don't be silly. Maybe for 300+...
Also, a 30 dollar degasser? Complete overkill. It's called a spoon. Or whatever you already stir your must with.

 

[DoctorCAD]

5 bottles of wine per gallon (thats why its called a fifth, its a fifth of a gallon) x 6 gallons = 30 bottles

 

[TedLarsen]

I got into homebrew when I got a kit for Christmas and have a few extract batches under my belt. Unfortunately I only have one other beer drinker in the family so I don't have too many people to share my hobby with and was thinking about taking up winemaking. Although I don't really enjoy wine, I expect I would enjoy the process of making it and have a lot of people in my family that would probably enjoy drinking it.

I know next to nothing about wine, but my wife and mother both like pinot grigio, so I was wondering if someone could chime in with the cost and level of effort that would be involved in producing some of that. As well, what sort of equipment would I need that I wouldn't already have from brewing beer?

As far as level of effort, I have always lived by this phrase: "Wine likes lazy."

 

[bernardsmith]

Also, figured I'd say you don't need a $70 corker. A $25 "wing" corker is just fine. Even for 30+ bottles. Really. Who needs a giant gizmo taking up floor space? Don't be silly. Maybe for 300+...
Also, a 30 dollar degasser? Complete overkill. It's called a spoon. Or whatever you already stir your must with.

Truly, if you have patience, you don't NEED a degassing tool. You rack the wine every two months into a sanitized carboy and that racking if you allow the wine to run down the inside wall of the carboy encourages the CO2 to escape. After aging for about 10 months and four or five rackings (onto K-meta) you should have very little if any CO2 to worry about.

 

[jensmith]

Home brewed wine just tast better then store bought!!! No comparison.

As far as cost goes. Not counting equipment I can make a five galleon batch of country wine for $10. Of corse if I had to buy all of my fruit it would cost $30-50 for the same amount. Add to that bottle cost if you have to buy all new bottles instead of reusing them.
I feel so sorry for you folks who buy youre fruit.

Ok, Ok, I do buy some fruit, sometimes!



Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[Beernik]

I have a tougher time tasting the flavors in my head when I'm wine making than when I'm brewing.

You can get more creative with country wines and meads than you can with grape kits. I just made 5 gallons of ginger-peach mead for about $50 worth of ingredients.

 

[fuelish]

I I just made 5 gallons of ginger-peach mead for about $50 worth of ingredients.

have used both, but not in the same mead...yet...sounds excellent

 

[Texconsinite]

I felt the same way as OP. I had started with beer, but SWMBO is a wine person. I too, was intimidated by the process of winemaking and the $$$ for juice/fruit/equipment to make it, for fear of screwing up a very expensive batch.
The answer is YES winemaking is worth it, and NO it does not have to be expensive. But how to get started?

I started with Skeeter Pee (recipe and detailed instructions at skeeterpee.com), and I'm glad I did. Here's why:

1) Its cheap. For a 5 Gallon batch, the ingredients cost under $20. Its just lemon juice, table sugar, a pinch of few LHBS things, dry wine yeast. So even if u screw it up (you won't) or hate it (you wont) you arent out THAT much. Also, since it doesnt need to bottle age like most wines, you can just bottle first few batches in 12oz crown caps like beer, rather than paying $$$ for a Corker, wine bottles, etc. I even use same big spoon to stir as for beer, disagree with the NEED for much of the winemaking supplies listed if you just try this recipe before going all-in with others.

2) Its quick. Brew day is DRASTICALLY quicker with this recipe (and many wines) than making beer. No mashing, steeping, 60 min boil, hops additions or wort chiller needed. Dissolve sugar, add other stuff, stir. Skeeter Pee also doesnt take THAT long from brew to bottle: 1-2 wks to ferment dry, 1-3 wks to clear, then bottle and ready to drink right away since no need for aging or carbing like beers.

3) Its simple-The instructions are very thorough, and gets you used to the parts of the wine process that differ from beermaking, like:
-periodically adding nutrients, energizer and such
-Stopping fermentation and letting it clear
-Backsweetening and bottling/corking
Also, once you've tried the basic recipe, there's unlimited ways to experiment and tweak it with any fruit flavor you or SWMBO want (see SP thread here)

After several tasty batches of this were in the bottles, I had the basics of winemaking down, and was ready to branch out to other wines with more expensive ingredients and complex recipes, along w putting $$ into winemaking supplies like corker, etc.

Just my (longwinded) two cents. Hope that helps. Winemaking is not as scary or difficult as it seems, IMO its easier and much less $$ than going All-Grain. Also 5 gallons of 11%ABV wine goes farther than 5 gallons of 5%ABV beer.