Help!!!

Here is the scoop. The Italian Festival in Memphis is a huge deal and it's hard to get on teams and into booths. Friends of friends heard I make wine and beer and they asked me to be on their team and want me to make some wine. Stellar opportunity.

So, I need some good sound advice on what to make and a good recipe to knocks their socks off. Has to be ready by June, so it has to be something that doesn't HAVE to age an extended amount of time to be palatable.

The brew store here has great kits. I could start that. I want to make a red. Preferably a cab or Pinot.

some of the best wines (especially with not a lot of aging time) I have ever made were with fruits that have really assertive flavors like raspberry, apricot, or peach. Your biggest issue is going to be time and by going with an assertive flavored fruit either in part or in whole will allow it to have a lot of really good flavors as a young wine. You could either make a wine strictly out of these fruits or use a grape or apple base and then add these fruits to enhance the flavor. Apricot or peach I would do over a white grape or apple and the raspberry I would do over a purple grape. Best part about doing a base wine out of grapes or apples and then adding the other assertive fruits is the drinker will never see it coming. They will be expecting a nice red or white and then pow they will hit hit with the pleasant surprise of the other fruits.

4 months will be very difficult to have a red finish. More likely a year.

The "mist" kits will be ready, and some whites will finish, but not reds.

I am thinking about doing something other than fruits. Maybe like rosemary or basil - just a hint. Maybe another spice or herb. It's for an Italian Fest contest an I want it to stand out. I started a Chard 3 days ago.

Ideas? Anybody experimented with herbs or spices with Chard?

you can drink wine in 4 months, its not like there is universal rule as to when you can consume your wine...If your friends haven't ever tasted a young wine they might be really confused when they take a drink but who knows its not impossible to make a good tasting young wine.

There are several fruit wines that can be drinkable in 4 months. Skeeter pee is one, especially for the summer months. I also like ginger banana wine for whites and hibiscus flower tea wine for reds.

I have never tried a lemon wine, but lemon pairs very well with basil.

I absolutely enjoy my hibiscus, dried elderberry and rosehip wine. It is less than 4 months from the start of it, and while it will improve with age, I get loads of comments.

I also want to make a juniper berry wine, and a chocolate mint (the herb) wine.

You are only limited by your imagination, and a successful recipe! Go for it.

These are some great ideas. How/where do you get the favors to do this? I would imagine you would have to make a 'tea' of sorts to flavor as to not cloud the wine.