Wine kits

Am I supposed to be stirring the wine at all during the first week? I feel a little lost..

nope just follow the instructions and it should turn out just fine. If you have grapes then you should dunk them every day.

You would only need to stir up the lees if the wine does not seem to be fermenting well. You should keep an eye on the SG to make sure it is dropping steadily, but you should be ok if you keep the fermenter warm--about 75F for a red, over about 12 days; (start a white at about 70F and bring it down to no more than about 60F as soon as fermentation starts). For whites brix should not fall more than about 5 degrees a day or you can lose bouquet and complexity. Reds can drop 15 degrees brix within 48 hours at the higher temperatures. When brix is down to about 10 you can relax.

I've had great results with wine kits. I buy the top of the line kits because the effort you put in is the same as the cheap kits, but the wine turns out spectacular. After all, pretty much any one can make great wine if they start with great grapes. The hard thing is making ten thousand gallons of great wine.