new to wine

[Boohausen]

Well after many of years brewing, im looking to try wine. i was going to do a small 1-3 gallon batch, i was going to use welches red grap juice, all natural with no additives, i already tried cider from apple juice and it worked great, so what would be some suggestions for a solid simple process to create a merlot like wine from grape juice, are there any fermenting aids i should consider etc. thanks


Cheers

 

[Yooper]

Well after many of years brewing, im looking to try wine. i was going to do a small 1-3 gallon batch, i was going to use welches red grap juice, all natural with no additives, i already tried cider from apple juice and it worked great, so what would be some suggestions for a solid simple process to create a merlot like wine from grape juice, are there any fermenting aids i should consider etc. thanks


Cheers

Well, to get a merlot-like wine, you'd need to actually purchase merlot juice or merlot grapes. Welch's works (and I have a good standard recipe posted) but it's nothing like a wine made out of wine grapes. A Welch's recipe would use concord grape juice (that's what the red welch's is) and so you'd get something more like Manishewitz or Mogen David. Concord grape wine is thinner, tart (unless you sweeten it) and pretty darn good but nothing like a wine made out of wine grape juice.

You could either go ahead and make the Welch's (and lower your expectations!) or get a relatively inexpensive Winexpert merlot kit ($70 or so, makes 6 gallons). Either would make a nice drinkable wine, although very different!

 

[Boohausen]

thanks for the info, much appriciated. it makes sense now that your explained it. i guess my furgalness was hoping cheap grape juice could make a merlot, either way it bound to be a good experiment.