Doing my first wine

[smorris]

I racked into the secondary today and have a very nice, deep maroon Valpolicella going. Ended up with about a 1/2 gallon more than I could put into the carboy, so the wife and I both grabbed a cup and started dipping some out to try it. What a decadent way to get wine, dipping from the bucket. Man, this is some potent stuff, we both had a buzz going after 2 cups. It was a little rough around the edges but no worse then getting beer out of the primary and sipping at it. I'm looking forward to trying a little in about 4 weeks and the when it has aged properly.

 

[smorris]

a week to go before bottling and the fining has worked, took a sample and the wine is crystal clear. SWMBO and I split a glass and it tasted very good even though it needs a couple months of bottle aging yet. And what a kick, wow, this is some serious alcohol content.

 

[SwAMi75]

Congrats on the wine! It just occurred to me that I should try making some. Since I don't know crap about wine, I'd probably be happy with it even if it turned out horrible!

My wife is a wine drinker...I was hoping she'd be interested in doing her own after she saw me brewing beer, but I guess she'd just rather buy it at the store.

If I had enough fermenting equipment I'd be tempted to give it a shot... I ought to tell her I want a wine kit for my birthday so I can make wine for her. Right now, though, there are still way to many beer recipes I'm itching to get going, so it'll be a while!

 

[smorris]

Wine is a whole lot less work than beer, on the other hand, it takes a lot longer. But the wife will be happy and won't make any noises about the beer mess, etc if i make her some wine from time to time.

 

[smorris]

Well, it is finally all in bottles, 21 750mL bottles and 3 16 ounce bottles for sampling to determine when it is ready without opening a whole bottle before its time. Now back to brewing beer...