Just bottled a few....

[Skinard]

These have been sitting in carboys fora while and I had a bit of a window to bottle them over the past couple days. I made the pineapple pear from a WE kit with a couple tweaks, the pinot from a fontana kit using some of the tweaks on this forum, and the concord using welch's. I won't be impressing any conneisseurs, but they all came out pretty good. I didn't think I would like the welch's, but it has an unusual tartness that everyone, including myself, seems to enjoy. I also have a batch of "dragon's blood" in the primary, and I think I am going to try to up my game with a higher quality kit for my next batch. I have enough to hold me off from dipping into it before aging so I am thinking maybe an EP Winery or CC showcase.... any suggestions?

 

[NorCal]

Nicely done. Love the labels.

 

[Country]

My wife loves sweet Concord wine. I didn’t think I would like it but it’s pretty tasty!

 

[crooked cork]

I really like your labels, i am not talented enough to make nice labels like that.
Concord wine is fabulous i make about 20 gallons per year from 100 plus year old vines.

 

[Donatelo]

This is the label that I use for my Dragons Blood. You are welcome to it.
I have made several batches of the Welch's and am always surprised. After six months it is a totally different wine than at 3 months. those are some very nice labels. did you do them on paint 3-D ? Very nice looking wines too.

 

[Skinard]

Thanks... The labels are really pretty easy. The software that I use is a 3 month free trial of Maestro Label Designer when I ordered labels from onlinelabels dot com. (Which was pretty reasonable at about $11 for 600 labels, 100 sheets...) I also have Photoshop which would pretty much do the same thing but might be a little harder to align the pictures for printing. I don't do anything fancy when making them. I just find a picture that I like on Google and copy it, then create the wording. I don't know if I am violating copyrights with the pics, but then again I am just using it for myself because it's fun and looks cool. Here are a couple others, Malbec, and the one I made for "Dragon's Blood" which I was just going to call "Blood Wine"...

 

[Skinard]

As far as the welch's is concerned... when I racked it for the final time I backsweetened it a bit, and I thought I made a mistake because I didn't like it. It was too sweet. I let it sit for a month and it changed pretty dramatically. Like I said, it won't win any contests, but it became a bit tart in that time and quite enjoyable. I wonder what it will taste like in another month or two...

 

[Skinard]

I really like your labels, i am not talented enough to make nice labels like that.
Concord wine is fabulous i make about 20 gallons per year from 100 plus year old vines.

I would love to try to make Concord from grapes. I wonder if there are any vineyards near me where I could get some...

 

[wrongway]

Those are awesome labels!! I have been curious if someone might have a software just for label making?

 

[Skinard]

Those are awesome labels!! I have been curious if someone might have a software just for label making?

Thanks. I am pretty sure that software exists just for making labels, but probably any photo editing software could be used. Photoshop is good, but it's expensive. Paint shop pro is much cheaper and more than adequate for creating labels. There are probably even free programs out there that would suffice for label making. Free trials are also available. Just do a search for "free photo editing software", but also do some research an be careful. Alot of times "free" software is loaded with bloatware and sometimes even viruses. But there are good ones too.

 

[Jal5]

I made some labels using Microsoft Word and setting up the page as though I was doing a mail label: 6 labels to a page. Then you can insert whatever picture in a jpg file format you want. I would work on the jpg photo that I got off the internet using Microsoft Powerpoint so I could add text like the wine's name, date bottled, ABV, and my name of course! You can simply save as a jpg file instead of a Powerpoint file. didn't look too bad to me anyway.Next time I will make my name bigger on this type label.

 

[Jal5]

skinard I like your labels---good job.

 

[pgentile]

@Skinard would like to hear how the Pineapple Pear tastes and smells. I made one from frozen pineapple pieces and pear concentrate, it's only three months old but in 5 years of wine making it was the best smelling wine during primary. Will be racking and tasting soon.

Nice labels!!

 

[Skinard]

@Skinard would like to hear how the Pineapple Pear tastes and smells. I made one from frozen pineapple pieces and pear concentrate, it's only three months old but in 5 years of wine making it was the best smelling wine during primary. Will be racking and tasting soon.

Nice labels!!

I made mine from a Wine Expert kit. It wasn't the highest quality kit (at least I don't think it was), but good. I modified it a bit to up the alcohol, plus a couple other tweaks. To be honest I don't yet have an opinion on it as I want to let it sit for a few months. Out of the carboy I would rate it as slightly above average for a fruit wine taste, but I do expect it to get better. It probably would have been better tasting at the get go if I had not upped the alcohol and followed the directions to the T, but we like our wines with a bit of a bigger bite.The smell was also about the same. I did expect a bit more of a "pineappley" smell, but it was fairly faint but noticeable. Maybe that will also change with time....

Frozen pineapple slices sounds like a great idea. I may try that. Do you have a recipe? How would fresh pineapple work? There is an aldi's store closeby that sells whole pineapples for around $2 each.

I am sure someone has tried a straight pineapple wine... How does that work out? I once filled a jar with fresh pineapple then filled the jar with good vodka. After a week it was pineapple vodka, and I didn't let my kids eat the pineapple.

 

[pgentile]

How did you tweak the alcohol? Sugar or less dilution? The couple WE white wines I've made were good.

Fresh pineapples are ideal. I would cut them up and the freeze them then thaw and make wine. There are few threads somewhere in the Country Wines section on fresh pineapple wines. Here is a recipe from another site: https://eckraus.com/content/pineapplewine.pdf

My recipe was:

15lbs frozen pineapple pieces
64oz pear concentrate
2-3 lbs sugar
pectic enzyme
acid blend
tannin

 

[Skinard]

I added sugar, but now that you mention it I should have cut back the water instead. Being a noob I didn't think of it at the time, but I will next time. Thanks for the suggestion. Still, it came out pretty good, and I expect it to get better, so chalk it up to experience earned cheaply. And thanks for the recipe.

 

[Skinard]

Note: I opened a bottle yesterday (after just a few weeks) and the WE pineapple pear is already beginning to balance out. It's a very nice fruit wine with my tweaks. I don't know if it would be better or worse without the tweaks, but it's good and getting better. In a few months it should be pretty darn good. The concord is a big hit. Everyone that tries it wants a bottle. Even my wife, who truly likes dry and normally sticks her nose up when tasting my sweeter wines, likes it. I actually tweaked that one when making it by adding currants, tannin and oak - and back sweetened with simple syrup and Welch's. I was just screwing around to see what would happen and apparently scored. I guess I'll be buying more "Welch's", but I actually didn't use "Welch's", I used the Walmart brand.

 

[mhopkins]

This is the label that I use for my Dragons Blood. You are welcome to it.
I have made several batches of the Welch's and am always surprised. After six months it is a totally different wine than at 3 months. those are some very nice labels. did you do them on paint 3-D ? Very nice looking wines too.
View attachment 47539

@Donatelo, I hope you don't mind me resurrecting an older thread. Did/do you make your Welch's using a variation of the Dragon Blood recipe? I've made several DBs - 3-berry blend, 4-berry blend, peach, cranberry/lime (really nice!). Out of curiosity I was thinking to try a batch with Welch's to see how it turns out. I would be grateful for any input you might care to offer. Thanks in advance.