# First wine suggestions??



## bassmaster911 (Apr 13, 2012)

I have been brewing beer for a while now no my wife is wanting to get into wine. She likes the cherry wine from St. James or a sweet red wine. Is there a kit that will provide good results for a first time wine. The beer stuff seems easy to grasp but the wine procedures have me thinking a kit is the way to go for the first batch. Thanks.


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## Brew and Wine Supply (Apr 13, 2012)

A lot of the kits tend to follow main stream wine, ie: Cabernets and Merlots, a bit on the dry side. For a sweet wine the Island Mist kits are good. They are a lot like Arbor Mist or Wild Vines wines. To get into something like what St. James makes ( the Missouri winery ) you may want to go and get some Welches grape juice and make wine from that. There are many recipies on the forum for that and variations. Another is skeeter pee...
Welcome to the forum and good luck!


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## Duster (Apr 13, 2012)

bassmaster911, welcome to the forum.
I would always recommend beginning with a kit. 
However you said you already have brewing experience with beer kits.
Like mentioned above, you may be better off getting some 100% juice and start with that. I am unsure what you have for beer equipment, but you may find that most of your wine kits require 6 gallon carboys and the beer kits that I have done center around 5 gallon carboys. By doing a juice wine you can make whatever size of batch you want.
Also in my opinion wine is much easier than beer, there is a lot less of "kitchen time" needed for wine.
Here is a really good and easy cherry recipe my wife and I like. I know its only a 3 gallon but you should be able to adjust the size to fit whatever you want it to. 

View attachment Cherry Labrusca.pdf


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## bassmaster911 (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks for the info. Do the Juice concentrate(welches) make a good wine? I might just have to start with the cherry wine posted. Any changes you would make to the recipe?


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## captainl (Apr 13, 2012)

Have you made apfwlwein yet? The beer brewers tend to rave about it and its an easy wine. I would try a batch if you haven't. I agree, if you are an advanced brewer, wine will be easy. Just some different equipment if your doing the kits...which I too recommend. Good luck.


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## captainl (Apr 13, 2012)

As far as the welchs, I made a few 1 gallon batches when I started and they tasted like......welches. but they did make some good sangria.


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## bassmaster911 (Apr 13, 2012)

If I do the Welches do I use tap water, distilled or RO water. Does it matter?


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## Brew and Wine Supply (Apr 13, 2012)

try to stay away from "city" water. If you are on a well that is good. If on city water, boil it and let it sit 12 hours +- to get the chlorine/chlorimine out of it. RO is ok. try not to use distilled water, too pure.


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## Duster (Apr 14, 2012)

another thought, have you checked out any of the recipes listed here on the forum?
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f2/
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp"]Jack Keller also offers some good recipes, I would recommend cutting the starting SG down a bit on his though. That is unless you like rocket fuel


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## JordanPond (Apr 14, 2012)

My wife wAs originally a white wine drinker and I have slowly pulled her over to the dark side. Her favorite has been an rj spagnols British Columbia Pinot noir that we back sweetened to enhance the fruitiness. The beauty of making your own is being able to adjust the sweetness to your liking.


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## cpfan (Apr 14, 2012)

JordanPond said:


> My wife wAs originally a white wine drinker and I have slowly pulled her over to the dark side. Her favorite has been an rj spagnols British Columbia Pinot noir that we back sweetened to enhance the fruitiness. The beauty of making your own is being able to adjust the sweetness to your liking.


This would probably be the Grand Cru International BC Pinot Noir. I haven't tried it, but back in 2006-2007 my customers liked it as a dry wine.

Steve


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## jswordy (Apr 16, 2012)

Welch's concord is easy and a great way to get started. If some very rare unfortunate incident should cause it somehow to go bad, you are not out big bucks. I don't know about the flavor complaint, I have had some very fine Welch's by manipulating the back end of it before bottling. I do like that it provides a decent base to play around with, and generally it's well under $2 a bottle when you are all done. My results from fiddling have run from bold and biting to very mellow and dessert-like.

After your first experience with it, you may wish to move to a "higher class" wine, but there are folks on here who never stop making the Welch's as an everyday wine, to keep them out of their high-class stuff as it ages.

For me personally, starting with Welch's made me realize I could make my own wine without the need for a kit, it got me hooked on the experimental art of manipulating the wine rather than following directions, and consequently I never have made a kit.

Your mileage may vary. Have fun with it!


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## cmason1957 (Apr 18, 2012)

I haven't made any of the Welch's wine, it doesn't sound particularly good to me. I have made an Orchard Breezin with very good results, my wife and I won a bronze medal from our local wineclub with one. 
Pretty much every homebrew shop can get these for you, for about $50-75 and they are very willing to answer questions. At least the ones nearby me are. The directions are very straight-forward and easy to follow. Since you make beer, you probably have everything you need, except maybe a 6 gallon car-boy.

Good luck and have fun.


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## sully (May 11, 2012)

*Water*

i live in the city and i just go to pick and save and get revese osmosis filtered water for 66 cents a gallon seems to work well yet i have also just started making wine too. or i drive and hr. and get artisan well water out in country. from what i know city water is no good


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## Bartman (Jul 22, 2013)

Funny how something like water can vary so much from place to place. I live in the city (Dallas) and only drink tap water. We sometimes buy cheap bottled water for traveling, but its source is usually labeled as Dallas Municipal water. Between the taste and the convenience, I quit using bottled water for wine after my first kit. On the flip side, my in-laws west of town have well water that smells and tastes horrible and leaves sulfur stains on every surface; they can't even make iced tea with their tap/well-water. So use what you like, just avoid the distilled water as it lacks certain minerals that your wine will need.

One other thought is that well-water has the potential of micro-organisms contamination that bottled and treated city water usually don't.


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## sholomy (Sep 29, 2013)

op funny u say the beer is easy i always thought beer is way more daunting than wine


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## sholomy (Sep 29, 2013)

i just watched a how to make beer video on youtube and i gotta say i was wrong its definitely not way more daunting than wine and i definitely need to give it a shot one day


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