Newbie looking to break more into wine-making - requesting kits to avoid, and tips!

[msarro]

Hey everyone!
So, I have been making beer, meads and ciders for a few years now - close to 10. However, I had some personal revelations recently, and want to learn a lot more about traditional wine-making (from grapes).

I figured the easiest way to kick things off is the same way I got started brewing beer - buy a kit and make some homebrew!

But, unlike beer kits where it is generic ingredients that the LHBS assembles into kits, nearly all of the kits for wine are name-brand (companies like Grand Cru, etc). Are there any kits to avoid?

The other option is juice from our local vineyards, but the prices are pretty steep, especially since I have no knowledge about blending.

 

[ACbrewer]

I'll admit I've done 2 kit manufactures. Island Mist (think wine coolers, these tend to be about 7%ABV and sweet, although grape, not apple based) and Special Reserve which was an ice wine. I've done a lot of skeeter pee (lemon wine) and 2 wine from fruit (1 peaches, came out dry and one cranberry came out tart).

Where you might want to look for reviews of the kits is winemaker magazine (it is a sister to BYO magazine, and there is a link back and forth from the byo.com or winmaker.com to the other) One review I saw there said that very good wines can be made from the kits, and the difference between kits is usually how much juice they put in v how much water you add. There is however good wine to be made from either kit - or so they said.

I'd find several things. 1 the price you want to pay. 2 the type of wine you want to drink (reisling, Merlot, Zinfindel, Pinot, etc). the second will drive to some extent the first. That is all of the less expensive kits tend to be the lower end wines (as far as wine conisours think of them).

And most of the kits are 'sister brands' meaning the same people who make one kit make a higher (more juice) or lower(less juice) cost kit.

The main problem of doing wine from fruit is juice extraction. I mean if you have a large enough fermenter, you can do wine in your beer gear (7.8 gallon primary, 6 gallon secondary for kits). But just like with beer you needed a large kettle and a large heat source to do all grain, so it is with wine, you need a press or some extraction method to get the juice.
for juice wine, you may find http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp of use. He has a lot of non grape wines listed (banana, tomato, etc).

For my cranberry wine, I just used 100% cranberry juice as my base.

Hope this helps

 

[DoctorCAD]

Any of the major brand wine kits will do. Even the low-dollar Amazon kits can be helped, but the better kits don't need a lot except time.

Keep clean and add 6 months at the back end for the wine to bulk age before bottling and it will turn out just fine.