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Ha, simple solution for the win :)

How easily do the avery labels come off? I've been using laser printer on standard printer paper and a glue stick. Cutting and gluing takes a bit more time than I'd prefer on the front end, but they look pretty good and come off super easy. Wet the label first, double rinse the inside, put...

I'll second blending. I just did something similar 2 weeks ago, but fortunately with only half a cheap merlot kit that I had split to compare tweaked vs plain. I bottled some of the over-oaked one to see how it matures, but I blended some of it 50/50 with the unoaked one and those bottles...

On degassing, if you just put a stirrer straight down in the middle of the bucket and give the drill a good squeeze, it's awfully easy to make a vortex so deep you can nearly see the bottom of the bucket. That's bad because it's sucking oxygen into your wine. Personally, I use a $3 paint...

Yup, Flash detente is pretty interesting stuff. Amazing what they can do with technology these days. Guess I'll have to keep making kits to drink now and juice pails to age, at least till I can get a few of them into the 2 or 3 year range.

Well that was an interesting rabbit hole :) Yea I had to give myself a crash course in acid adjustment when I got my first juice bucks...and in the case of one bucket a case a crash course in mercaptans and disulfide :/ They're a lot less easy and reliable than kits and I've been less than...

I didn't know that. So they are making some sort of effort to get the flavor closer to the mark than just plain Valpolicella. Thanks for the info, that's encouraging.

Yea, I'm not a stickler for tradition as long as it tastes good and is affordable enough to put up a few cases and drink them on a fairly regular basis. I've had a few commercial amarones and non-amarone appassimento wines, and the ones that were not from Veneto, or had some merlot in the mix...

I'm thinking of ordering an amarone juice bucket when the itialian juice comes in, but I'd like to get a better idea what I'd actually be ordering since amarone and fresh juice seem mutually exclusive. I can't imagine they're making juice fro from traditional partially dehydrated grapes...

I'd say try the vermentino. Not that I've tried the others except as commercial offerings, but I did a bucket of vermentino last year and it'd say it's my second favorite white wine I've ever tasted. It's a bit like an unoaked chardonay but with a lot of this fruity/estery/phenolic thing going...

I've done the fontana pinot grigio. I made it to 6 gallons, split the batch and added zest to one 3 gal carboy for the secondary. It produced a decent everyday white, probably a bit lower on acidity than it ought to be, but not bad for a buck and a half a bottle. I couldn't tase any difference...

Thanks for the advice. I ordered the petite sirah and the bardolino, so I guess I'll bite the bullet and do my first MLF :)

Hi. I'm new here and planning to do my first juice buckets this year. I'm wondering how important MLF is for the varieties I'm considering. I'll probably do probably 2 buckts out of bardonlino, sangiovese, petite sirah or _maybe_ amarone. I'm wondering how necessary MLF is for each of these...