Very cool to hear from someone who got in on the first shipment. The booklet is available in PDF form here for anyone who wants to read it before their kit arrives (or hasn't bought a kit yet):
https://indd.adobe.com/view/929e37e4-36a7-4ac5-af96-cd2cfd61bcbe
The most interesting thing in the book is that he says that all kits, regardless of price or varietal, come from pasteurized juice, concentrate, even skins in order to be shelf stable and that leads them to taste "cooked and dead" with an "unmistakable flavor in all pasteurized juice kits" which he and fellow wine contest judges could always pick out. (See page 17, bottom of the only full paragraph). Hence his kits is unpasteurized and ships cold and needs to be kept cold, if this works he has solved "kit taste".
The other thing which stood out to me was that the booklet does not talk at all of bulk aging (nor extended maceration), like most kits it has you bottling within 8 weeks, using the usual fining agents and stabilizers, I think even sorbate is packed together with sulfite but I could be wrong there. But in terms of drinking the wines he is clear that the more skins you use the longer to leave the bottles alone. He suggests that all bottles will improve with age, but to wait at least 6-12 weeks if you used no skin packs, 4-6 months if you used a single skin pack, and 6-12 months if you used a double skin pack. (see #9 on page 15).
I still have not gotten any notice about the shipping of my Super Tuscan kit, but in no rush. Perhaps certain varietals are ready and shipping sooner than others?
I plan to do a shorter extended maceration (EM) on the double skin packs, for about 4 weeks. Not yet sure if I will bulk age (probably), or use all of the finings and stabilizers (maybe not, may just use sulfite), and what I'll do with the yeast and yeast starter (I like the idea of yeast starters but I'm also trying to create something I can closely and fairly compare to the RJS Super Tuscan which is in EM right now, and used BM4X4 yeast with Go Ferm simply rehydrated with no starter, then Ferm K at 65% of O.G.).
Very good information about how the double skin packs of dry skins soak up a decent amount of wine, I may just move to a 5 gallon carboy and keep the excess wine for topping off.
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