You really could not be in a better place to be a home wine maker. Where in California are you? I started out like you. Wine enthusiast, guys at work had a group wine making effort going and I signed on in 2016. It's a great hobby because 99% of the time, you can just stand by and let the wine make itself, and after a few years, you can start to drink the product. I can say, that my wine has improved every year. There's a natural learning process we all go through and making a few mistakes is not the worst thing.
The best place to get most things you will need is MoreWine. Lodi Wine Labs is also good, just not as comprehensive. Lots of other places too but MoreWine is the standout. Also check out MoreWine's bible of home winemaking-I promise the best reference for home wine making you will ever get for free:
https://morewinemaking.com/web_files/intranet.morebeer.com/files/wredw.pdf
The first 1/3 of this is the basics of making red wine and the last 2/3 is why you do what you do in the first 1/3. It's surprisingly well done. Also on their website are dozens of other tips, tricks, advice etc. They also have a similar white wine manual.
Another good source of newby info is the Home Winemaking Channel on YouTube. If you follow his journey, he started out small, but now has a vineyard, makes wine from grapes, and has the best explanation of Acid and sulfite titrations on the internet.
Let me recommend you do a kit to get down the basic mechanics of fermentation, racking, sterile process etc. But come next fall you will have access to real grapes and can immediately graduate to making wine from grapes. It adds a few steps-picking, crushing, pressing, racking but you will be able to make excellent wine right out of the gate. Or if you've done a kit, consider buying a couple of pails of frozen grape must from Wine Grapes Direct-again, a practice run with the idea you're teaching yourself the basics and preparing for next harvest season which is August through October. Though my 1 experience with their pails says the quality is first rate.
How much do you plan to make in a year? I think most kits and juice pails make 5ish gallons. So get a 5 gallon carboy, a 3 gallon carboy and 3 1 gallon jugs and 2 1/2 gallon jugs. That will get you going. Another good source of 4 Liter (slightly bigger than 1 gal) jugs is our friend Carlo Rossi. Excellent jugs that come with wine inside that is...safe to drink.
I really gotta start this home wine making thing. nice content tho
