No more beer. I am a wine man now! And one question at the end

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BillTheSlink

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I have never been much of a drinker anyway, and beer brewing was getting to be such a hassle. I decided to do a Riesling and an Australian Shiraz as my first kits and ordered them. To give myself an idea of what these should taste like when I get them and get them done I went to the grocery today and got a Blue Nun Riesling from the Rhine and a Yellow Tail Australian Shiraz. Tonight Grandmother decided to cook sauerkraut and wieners so I lightly chilled the Riesling. Just before we ate I had half a glass and it was really good, but the best part is by the time the meal was served my appetite was under complete control and for the first time in years I slowed down and enjoyed my food. The glass I had with supper made the flavors of the sauerkraut and buttery mashed potatoes explode off my pallet. I was concerned because it was advertised as a dry wine and I've only ever had sweet communion wines until two weeks ago when we served some off dry white, but I loved it, and the best part was I had a warm fuzzy feeling after that glass and one half.

I can't wait to make my first two kits. I have made Ed Wort's Apple Juice but it isn't ready to sample yet. It will be great to make a fine beverage without having to brave hot or cold weather, burn $10.00 worth of propane, watch for boil overs, and end up smelling like a bigfoot creature at the end of an all grain brewing secession. Oh, I will still brew may favorites from time to time, but scaled down so I don't have to do all that lugging and tugging.

My only question is, is the World Vineyard examples of these style as good as the commercial versions I bought (The Blue Nun and Yellow Tail)?
 
It's hard to get a wine to taste like a commercial wine due to the amount of tannins asocciated with having the skins fermented with the wine. Most kits don't have the skins and the ones who do, don't have enough.
Still you can make a pallatable wine from kits, especially the whites.

Take this for what it's worth, as I'm not wine drinker per se, but from what others have told me I get this info.
 
I make a lot of wine and actually admin the sister site to this
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/. As far as this kit matching the quality of that commercial I can honestly say its all personal preference but will also say that kit is a cheaper wine kit and probably not. The bigger kits are way better (especially if your talking red wines) because they have more solids in them which relate to more body per wine. Almost all the smaller kits will give you a thinner wine lacking in body and complexity but the white wine kits dont exaggerate this. I wouldnt even make 1 of these smaller red wine kits myself and dont recommend them to anyone. the bigger kits need more time to produce a good wine but given a few months for a white and at least 6-8 months for a red they will out perform any smaller kit at that point and turn into a wine of great quality. For me, I make only the RJS Winery series grape skin kits or high end whites and feel that they produce a wine equal to most average or better commercial wine. When you make your own wine you can adjust the sweetness level to your taste by adding a simple syrup consisting of 2 parts sugar to 1 part boiling water and add this to your wine after it has been stabilized.
 
I make a lot of wine and actually admin the sister site to this
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/. As far as this kit matching the quality of that commercial I can honestly say its all personal preference but will also say that kit is a cheaper wine kit and probably not. The bigger kits are way better (especially if your talking red wines) because they have more solids in them which relate to more body per wine. Almost all the smaller kits will give you a thinner wine lacking in body and complexity but the white wine kits dont exaggerate this. I wouldnt even make 1 of these smaller red wine kits myself and dont recommend them to anyone. the bigger kits need more time to produce a good wine but given a few months for a white and at least 6-8 months for a red they will out perform any smaller kit at that point and turn into a wine of great quality. For me, I make only the RJS Winery series grape skin kits or high end whites and feel that they produce a wine equal to most average or better commercial wine. When you make your own wine you can adjust the sweetness level to your taste by adding a simple syrup consisting of 2 parts sugar to 1 part boiling water and add this to your wine after it has been stabilized.

Do you have a link where I can buy one of there kits? I googled it and only found forums..
 
I make a lot of wine and actually admin the sister site to this
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/. As far as this kit matching the quality of that commercial I can honestly say its all personal preference but will also say that kit is a cheaper wine kit and probably not. The bigger kits are way better (especially if your talking red wines) because they have more solids in them which relate to more body per wine. Almost all the smaller kits will give you a thinner wine lacking in body and complexity but the white wine kits dont exaggerate this. I wouldnt even make 1 of these smaller red wine kits myself and dont recommend them to anyone. the bigger kits need more time to produce a good wine but given a few months for a white and at least 6-8 months for a red they will out perform any smaller kit at that point and turn into a wine of great quality. For me, I make only the RJS Winery series grape skin kits or high end whites and feel that they produce a wine equal to most average or better commercial wine. When you make your own wine you can adjust the sweetness level to your taste by adding a simple syrup consisting of 2 parts sugar to 1 part boiling water and add this to your wine after it has been stabilized.

That is great information. I was going to go at first with the $140.00 range kits, but felt I better do a couple of cheap kits first so I learned the process and didn't urinate away $300.00 due to bad technique. My next kit will be a high end one.

I actually am more interested in doing fruit wines as well as kit-grape wines. I have no room for a vineyard, but I can always find in season fruit at the farmers market pretty cheap. I got a copy of Mary's Recipes and plan to try my hand with that in the spring when the strawberries come in.
 

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