Misc Wine Making

[Donna_in_OK]

Years ago, my husband and I made wine, but didn't for about 14 years while he had moved elsewhere. We have started once again, and have about 30 gallons getting ready to bottle.

If you like/love wine, you should consider learning how to make your own. It is relatively simple, as long as you keep things sanitary along the way. The rewards are so beneficial.

Hope you try to make some of your own, should you like to take a sip now and then.

 

[Faroe]

Years ago, my husband and I made wine, but didn't for about 14 years while he had moved elsewhere. We have started once again, and have about 30 gallons getting ready to bottle.

If you like/love wine, you should consider learning how to make your own. It is relatively simple, as long as you keep things sanitary along the way. The rewards are so beneficial.

Hope you try to make some of your own, should you like to take a sip now and then.

BF has a brother who makes wine from kits. I wasn't impressed at all (and disappointed because the guy makes delicious beer), until the unconsumed bottles sat around for about four years. We gave one away to someone with the caveat, it's from a kit, it really doesn't taste good. They liked it. Huh? So, I tried one myself....much better!

 

[summerthyme]

Oh, yeah...

Have a Pinot Noir kit sitting in the island ready to start as soon as hubby feels up to it (he's getting stir crazy with his limitations after eye surgery, and I'm running out of things for him to do that he CAN do without lifting or bending)

We just used up the last of the 10 year old Pinot Noir last month, and man, was it smooth! Aging *definitely * helps most of the classic grape wines. However, you can make a mist wine kit and it will be drinkable in a month, best in 6-12 months, and by 3 years, you'll be wishing you had drunk it 2 years earlier!

The lighter white wines are somewhere in between. I made 5 gall9ns of Liebfraumilch from a kit, along with 5 gallons of a watermelon white Zinfandel kit for our youngest son's wedding back in 2009. People STILL talk about it, and ask if I "still have any"... yeah, right... that was the only wedding reception I ever saw where peopke were stealing bottles of wine as they left... They were walking out with a bottle in each hand!

I really need to make another batch of the Liebfraumilch... it was fabulous. And both varieties were in the bottles 6 months before the wedding.

We just ran out of the 4 gallons of strawberry wine I made last June... most was given away, again, because DS's Greek in-laws heard us talking about it at their daughter's baptism, so of course I had to send some to them! Somehow, the potassium sorbate I added as a yeast inhibitor when I added the honey to sweeten it a tad at the end didn't work completely. I think I didn't get it mixed in completely, because some of the bottles had a real fizz to them (and one cork ended up being pushed partly out!) I was worried about ending up with exploding bottles or wine spraying everywhere in the cellar if it pushed the corks out, but none of it got that far... made a good excuse to drink it up quickly! But being a "country" wine (as opposed to one made from varietal grapes), it was better drunk "young"... most fruit wines (blackberry, elderberry and plum are exceptions, because theyre very heavy bodied) are best drunk within 2 years.

Summerthyme

 

[Donna_in_OK]

Summerthyme,

I've had some fruit wines still good at the 7 year mark, but after that they do start to decline. We like the more dessert wines, but I'll drink a good Merlot. We've started cherry and will probably start a batch of strawberry in the next week or so.

When we bottle, we will keep at least two in cobalt blue bottles that we consider 'long term storage', so that we can compare batches over time. It's nice to be able to pull out a case to gift on special occasions.

 

[Donna_in_OK]

Faroe,

We don't use the kits. Sometimes we do start with a base to blend with. I'm not about to spend the kind of money they want on some of the kits not knowing I'll get a good wine product. The only 2 we ever made that were actually questionable was a gallon of coffee and 5 gallons of a maple syrup wine [very VERY dry]. I liked both, other people... not so much.

 

[Faroe]

Faroe,

We don't use the kits. Sometimes we do start with a base to blend with. I'm not about to spend the kind of money they want on some of the kits not knowing I'll get a good wine product. The only 2 we ever made that were actually questionable was a gallon of coffee and 5 gallons of a maple syrup wine [very VERY dry]. I liked both, other people... not so much.

You can make wine out of coffee? I had no idea.

 

[Donna_in_OK]

Faroe,

The recipe I do believe came from the Winemakers Recipe Book (purple cover). A wine making store should have it. It is actually pretty strange, in that one moment you feel the wine, the next the coffee kicks in, then the wine ... If you have it in the late evening you might have a bit of an issue falling asleep. The wine says YES, but the coffee says OH HECK NO.

 

[Faroe]

Faroe,

The recipe I do believe came from the Winemakers Recipe Book (purple cover). A wine making store should have it. It is actually pretty strange, in that one moment you feel the wine, the next the coffee kicks in, then the wine ... If you have it in the late evening you might have a bit of an issue falling asleep. The wine says YES, but the coffee says OH HECK NO.

What do the yeast feed on? Do you just add some white sugar?