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So what did you do differently?

I have made FWK Sauv Bl, 4 Blanc, Cheverny and Chard. I don't care Chard in general, but the FWK Chard was OK, much like Chard from other producers. The Sauv Bl, 4 Blanc and the Cheverny are all excellent. I've also made the FWK Rosé which is excellent but not better than RJS Rosé.

Many kits include skins for the primary fermentation. In the past I washed my hands well and squeezed the out when transferring to secondary. A messy project. I built the little tool to do the same thing. I don't know if it's especially more efficient but it's certainly less messy and easier on...

Roughly 17 g/liter. Here's a good resource. https://vinosigns.dk/.../2018/09/Making-Sparkling-Wine.pdf

Most of the kit wines I have made have decent aromas, some really powerful. Partly depends on how much time spent in the bottle.

I’ve been drinking wine for at least 60 years. In the early days I preferred Bordeaux wines then I discovered the Rhône! In general Of course, you can ever go wrong with a simple Beaujolais. I like wines from France, Spain and Italy. I’ve been making wine on and off for over years. I began with...

Yes, my most recent FWK Southern Rhône is very light in color, almost rosé. It's taste is also quite light.

I love Rhône wines, reds, whites, rosés. So when FEK came out with Southern Rhône and Northern Rhône I had to try one. I made a Southern Rhône in 2022. I have sampled it several times since bottling. It's very fruity, spicy, jammy. It's a nice deep red, a bit lighter in taste than Frenc.h Rhônes...

I learned a great trick many years ago when canning peaches. Putting one or two pits in the jar with the peaches gave a more intense peach flavor to the canned peaches. Peach pits also contain cyanide. 1 or 2 pits in each jar don't cause any problem. I would recommend mixing in a few pits with...

No oxidation, no Sherry

Many winemakers recommend against stirring the starter into the must, saying keeping the yeast together results in a better population

1. When making a kit, I never pay attention to pH. In fact, I rarely worry about it even when using fresh grapes. 2. I think it's better to use a yeast nutrient when a ferment has used 1/3 sugar--usually 2-3 days after pitching, when sg reaches 1.050 or thereabouts. 3. I never rack off until sg...

I have left the flowers in the primary for as long as 4 days.

I will take a contrarian point of view. While aging in larger containers prior to bottling is preferable, there is no reason to avoid bottling soon after completion of fermentation and clearing. Beaujolais Nouveau is bottled within weeks of picking the grapes. Instructions for kit wines suggest...

I'm sure the wine would be safe to drink. The problem is that it may have oxidized and won't taste good. Taste and see. If it tastes fine, just add meta to keep oxidation at bay.

There's no telling how many 100s of bottles I corked with 1.75" #9s with a butterfly type of hand corker. That was when I was much younger. It was a workout then and absolutely impossible today. Get a floor corker, you will never regret it.

The problem with this is you can't control the amount of copper in the resulting wine. Too much copper is toxic.

I've been making wine off and on since the 1970s, beginning with fruit wines and storebought grape juice, then I moved on to French-American hybrids from a grower and I've been hitting the kits pretty hard for the past few years. It finally happened for the first (and I hope only) time. I was...

I have found this chart useful. It was in the first winemaking book I ever bought. Beware, it is a British book so gallons are probably Imperial gallons.

I've only made 5 FWK whites, a Chard and a Sauv Bl (both pre-carbon fix), a Sauv Bl, a Cheverny and a 4 Blancs (all Post carbon fix) I've never been a big fan of Chardonnay and there is something about the FWK Chard that tastes a bit off. I don't know if this is due to the fact that it's...