Hi all

[Tom_S]

Hi everyone, I'm an experienced wine maker who just found this forum. I started making wine back in 1998 or so, then kind of fell out of the hobby until I got serious about 5 or 6 years ago. I admit that when I started I didn't know what I was doing, and some of the wine I made turned out pretty bad. But since then I've refined my technique and now make wines which rival store bought brands.

I mainly make wine from store bought juice or grape juice concentrates offered by wine making supply places, but on occasion I will make wine from fruit. I don't yet have my own grape vines but may get some in the future.

I am looking forward to meeting everyone on this forum and hope to offer some help and advice to new wine makers. I'm also on brew-wineforums.com but there's usually not a great deal of activity there.

 

[Rocky]

Hey Tom, welcome to the forum. I am eager to hear of and learn from your experiences.

 

[robie]

Hi Tom, glad to have you here. We generally have lots of activity and many times there are questions about fruit wines. We look forward to hearing from you.

 

[Tom_S]

Well like I said when I first started I didn't know what I was doing. I just got the basics about wine making from my brother. So I got a few gallon glass jugs, filled them full of grape juice, poured a bunch of sugar in, threw in some bread yeast, and topped the jugs with rubber gloves. Needless to say it made wine, just not really good wine. It was extremely sweet and had that off taste that bread yeast gives wine. Though I did manage to make a somewhat decent dry white wine back then, none of them turned out very well.

Fast forward about 9 years after not making wine, I decided to get serious about it. I started reading a bunch of articles online about making wine. I bought a hydrometer, got some wine yeast, and started making good wine. Now, a few years later, I've gotten even better at it from everything I've learned. I've learned to slow down and let my wine age instead of rushing it into the bottle. I even got a wine filter which really polishes up my batches.

The fruit wine I made last year was a pear wine from ripe pears, but I've been too busy to go get some this year. The pears made a good wine but it's not one I really care that much for. I still have some bottles of blackberry wine I made from freshly picked blackberries a few years ago, but unfortunately I don't have access to those bushes any more. Right now I mainly make wine from store bought juices and concentrates.

 

[Julie]

Hi Tom,

Welcome to winemakingtalk

 

[winemaker_3352]

Welcome aboard!!!

 

[Runningwolf]

Hey Tom, Welcome to WMT

 

[grapeman]

Welcome Tom. I hope you enjoy it here and stick around.

You might want to edit your location in the member panel so folks can see where you are located. Sometimes it helps answer questions and makes them more relevant.

 

[UBB]

Greetings!

 

[DirtyDawg10]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[andy123]

Hi Tom, Glad you found the forum. And Rocky, I've always enjoyed Mrs. Rocky's cheerful smile and wave.

 

[milkman]

hello tom...